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BL    51    .T37    1856 

Taylor,  Isaac,  1787-1865. 

The  restoration  of  belief 


A 


1 


THE 


RESTORATION  OP  BELIEF 


COMPLETE  IN  THREE  PARTS, 

y 

BY   ISAAC    TAYLOR, 

ADTnon  OF  "natural  history  op  enthdsiasm,"  etc.,  etc. 


I. 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  RELATION   TO  ITS  ANCIENT 
AND  MODERN  ANTAGONISTS. 


"  Suis  Ul(t  (religio  Christiana)  eonfenfa  est  viribus,  et  veritntia 

proprke  fundaminibus  nititur :  nee  spoliatur  vi  sua,  etianin  nidlam  haheai 
viiidicem:  immo  si  ling^ice  omnes  contrafaciant,  contraque  nitantur,  et  ad 
fidem  illius  ahroijandain  eonsensionis  unitce  dniinositate  conspirent." 

Arnobius- 


PHILADELPHIA: 

HERMAN   HOOKER,  S.  W.  CORNER  CHESTNUT  &  EIGHTH  STREETS. 

1856. 


PREFACE. 


-*•*- 


When  these  Tracts  were  projected  it  was  intended  that  they  should 
embrace  the  principal  subjects  that  belong  to  the  modern  argument  con- 
cerning the  truth  of  the  Christian  system;  and  I  then  believed  that  I 
should  be  able  to  carry  out  my  purpose  at  short  and  regular  intervals.  I 
have  not  found  it  possible  to  do  this;  and  in  fact  many  months  have 
separated  the  Second  of  these  publications  from  the  Third ;  nor  ought  I 
now  to  believe  that,  at  any  time  to  which  I  could  pledge  myself,  I  shall 
be  able  to  resume  my  task. 

Better  than  an  attempt  to  refute,  one  by  one,  tne  captious  and  nuga- 
tory objections  that  have  lately  been  urged  in  justification  of  Disbeliff, 
would  be — as  I  think — the  establishing  an  intelligible  and  defensible 
principle  of  Biblical  Interpretation,  from  a  misapprehension  of  which 
such  objections — one  and  all,  derive  the  semblance  of  importance  which 
they  may  possess.  Until  this  be  done  it  would  seem  to  me  not  merely 
a  waste  of  time  to  follow  and  reply  to  these  futile  cavils,  but  a  logical 
mistake,  inasmuch  as  they  should  be  dealt  with  comprehensively,  by 
determining  a  previous  question. 

Effectively  to  set  the  Christian  argument  clear  of  the  entanglements 
that  still  impede  its  progress  would  be  an  arduous,  but  hopeful  work, 
which  I  should  rejoice  to  see  taken  up  by  those  competent  to  the  labour : 
• — that  is  to  say,  on  the  supposition  that  the  Christian  community  is  at 
present  prepared  calmly  to  listen  to  a  course  of  reasoning  which,  while 
it  would  be  in  a  genuine  sense  religiotis,  and  would  involve  no  risk  to 
othodoxy,  must  fearlessly  demolish  superstitions  that  have  grown  up 
around  Holy  Scripture  in  the  course  of  many  centuries. 

(3) 


CONTENTS. 


— <•* — 

FAQB 

Christianity  in  relation  to  its  ancient  and  modern  antagonists      .    .  5 

England  the  fittest  arena  for  the  Christian  argument 27 

The  Religious  condition  of  the  Roman  world  in  the  times  of  Alex- 
ander Severus 40 

The  Transition-state  of  the  nations  around  the  Mediterranean  in  the 
period  between  the  reigns  of  Trajan  and  Alexander  Severus,  not 

to  be  understood  without  assuming  the  truth  of  Christianity     .     .  64 

The  same  subject 60 

The  Roman  necessity  for  persecuting  the  Church  ;  and  the  Christian 

necessity  for  enduring  that  persecution 67 

The  Martyr  Church  wrought  out  the  germinating  principle  of  the 

modern  Civilization 77 

The  Relation   between  modern  Science   and   systems  of  religious 
opinion — not  the  same  as  that  between  the  ancient  Philosophy 

and  Christianity 92 

The  Question  of  Christianity  is  determinable 109 

Classification  of  the  Books  of  the  New  Testament  in  relation  to  the 

present  argument 124 

General  Conclusion  as  to  the  Non-Supernatural  Epistles    ,     .     .     .  166 

The  Seven  apostolic  Epistles  which  aflBrm  or  allude  to  Miracles .    .  173 

Conclusion  as  to  the  Seven  Epistles  which  affirm  Miracles      •     .    .  204 

The  Force  of  Congruity  in  relation  to  Christianity  and  its  Miracles  213 

The  alternative — Christianity  or  Atheism 235 

The  Three  purposes  of  Christ's  mission 252 

The  First  Intention  of  Christ's  Mission,  as  attested  by  Miracles  .     .  269 

The  Second  Intention  of  Christ's  Mission,  as  attested  by  Miracles  .  305 

The  Third  Intention  of  Christ's  Mission,  as  attested  by  Miracles     .  336 

The  Cycles  of  Christianity 349 

(4) 


THE  EESTOEATION  OF  BELIEF. 


rj^Q    *    *    *    >f;    *    * 

Our  conversations  of  late  have  issued  in 
opening  interminable  questions,  on  the  right  hand  and 
on  the  left,  but  hitherto  they  have  not  brought  us  to 
a  conclusion  on  any  one  subject.  There  has  always 
been  common  ground  -whence  we  might  take  our  start, 
and  we  have  been  able  to  keep  company  some  way 
on  the  road  ;  but  soon  the  one  or  the  other  has  gone 
off,  drawing  the  immediate  argument  after  him  toward 
some  wholly  new  region. 

You  will  easily  recul  instances  of  this  sort  of  wan- 
dering, which,  while  it  has  seemed  to  do  violence  to 
logic,  has  obeyed — so  we  have  felt  it — the  call  of  a 
deep  moral  necessity.  The  chance  of  the  hour  has 
given  us  our  first  impulse  ;  but  a  law  of  thought  not 
to  be  resisted,  has  carried  us  forward  from  that  for- 
tuitous point  towards  an  unknown  centre  upon  which 
all  thought  converges.  The  Newspaper  may  have  given 
rise  to  an  earnest  discussion,  touching  the  condition  of 
the  laboring  classes,  manufacturing  or  rural ;  thence 
onward  we  have  gone  till  we  found  ourselves  encircled 
by  the  most  abstruse  questions,  in  approaching  which 
the   depths   of  Theology   were  in  front   of   us.      AV^ 

1*  (5) 


6  THE   llESTOKATTOX    OF    I^ELIEF. 

have  debated  the  principles  of  Taxation  :  thence  has 
a  path  opened  itself  into  the  subject  of  the  moral 
relationship  of  governments  towards  the  people ;  and 
thence  onward  again  toward  the  problem  of  Religious 
Establishments.  We  have  incidentally  mentioned  some 
points  of  Biblical  criticism,  and  have  gone  on  toward 
subjects,  not  unconnected  indeed  therewith,  but  of  in- 
finitely greater  importance  than  can  belong  to  any 
such  question. 

In  a  word,  to  approach  what  one  might  call  surface 
questions,  has  always  shown  us  that  an  interior  be- 
neath it  was  to  be  first  explored.  Or  if  the  interior 
were  brought  under  discussion,  its  many  results  and 
issues  carried  us  over  an  unlimited  expanse  upon  the 
field  of  practical  science. 

This  incessant  wandering  we  must  not  impute  to 
ourselves  altogether  as  a  fault.  If  in  these  instances 
we  had  been  less  desultory,  and  more  logical,  we  should 
have  paid  respect  to  the  forms  of  argumentation,  only 
in  proportion  as  we  had  disregarded  those  relationships 
that  are  more  real,  and  that  now  are  felt  to  be  so  by 
all  men. 

This  circuit-going  in  all  directions,  at  what  point 
soever  serious  controversy  or  incidental  conversation 
takes  its  start,  is  the  marked  feature  of  the  times  pre- 
sent ;  and  it  has,  as  I  think,  not  only  a  deep  meaning, 
but  a  good,  or  as  we  say,  an  auspicious  meaning. 
Conversation  among  intelligent  men,  and  the  literature 
of  the  day,  show  the  same  characteristic ;  and  as  we 
cannot  fail  to  notice  it,  we  should  not  fail  to  gather  its 
import.  Is  it  not  just  now  as  if  an  invisible  tyranny 
were   driving  the   minds  of  men  onward  and  onward, 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  7 

or  in  perpetual  circuits,  until  they  shall  have  become 
spent  in  fruitless  coui'ses  over  the  unenclosed  fields  of 
speculation  ? 

If  you  ask  -what  this  discursiveness  means,  and 
what  "will  be  its  end, — I  think  it  shows  that  now  at 
length  the  true  step  forward  toward  a  more  sure 
agreement  and  a  better  understanding,  at  least  among 
the  educated  classes  of  the  community,  has  actually 
been  taken ;  and  that  we  and  others,  including  many 
from  whom  we  most  differ,  have  by  this  time  gone 
some  way  forward  on  a  road  which  it  will  not  be 
necessary  hereafter  for  ourselves,  or  for  our  successors, 
to  retrace.  To  look  abroad  upon  the  world  of  opinion, 
in  this  country,  or  elsewhere,  what  one  sees  might 
seem  to  resemble  the  hurrying  hither  and  thither  of 
the  sparks  upon  a  burned  paper ;  all  which  sparks, 
bright  as  they  are,  are  soon  to  find  their  rest  in  ashes 
and  blackness.  Yet  not  so,  I  think,  in  the  social  sys- 
tem ;  for  here  the  sparks  are  showing  a  tendency  in 
one  and  the  same  direction  ;  or,  like  the  falling  stai'S 
and  meteors  of  an  autumn  sky,  they  all  give  notice  of 
their  bearing  upon  the  great  planetary  movements. 

You  will  be  told  by  some  around  us — and  they  are 
men  whose  judgment  well  deserves  to  be  regarded — 
that  they  have  seen  the  end  of  several  movements 
not  less  promising  than  this  to  which  we  are  linked, 
and  that  no  notable  result  in  which  we  could  rejoice, 
has  marked  the  return  of  men's  minds  to  their  custo- 
mary inaction. 

I  must  adhere  to  my  hopefulness  so  long  as  I  see 
clearly  a  ground  of  expectation  that  what  is  bi'ight  is 
at  hand.     It  has  come  to  be  felt  and  seen,  and  to  be 


8  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

acknowledged  too,  on  all  sides,  tliat  truth,  in  relation 
to  any  particular  subject,  touching  immediately  or  re- 
motely the  well-being  of  men — either  the  individual 
man,  or  the  social — can  be  only  one  portion  of,  or  one 
aspect  of,  UNIVERSAL  TRUTH  ;  and  that  if  we  would 
secure  ourselves  against  mischievous  mistakes  and  illu- 
sions as  to  that  single  subject,  whatever  It  may  be,  we 
must  know,  not  merely  the  whole  of  itself,  but  what  it 
borders  upon  ;  and  then  the  bordering  of  these  remoter 
neighbours,  one  upon  another,  and  so  onward  and  round 
about  must  we  advance,  until  we  have  fairly  made  the 
circuit  of  all  things,  or  of  all  things  which  it  is  granted 
to  man  to  measure  and  compass. 

This  feeling — this  acknowledgment — in  professing 
•which  all  are  agreed,  runs  parallel  with  the  axiom  of 
Natural  Philosophy,  namely,  that  there  are  no  insu- 
lated sciences  ;  but  that  all  investigations  of  -nature, 
and  all  paths  followed  in  the  abstract  sciences,  tend 
toward  a  centre,  and  are  only  so  many  independent 
contributions  toward  a  consentient  system,  which  will 
at  length  present  itself  as  a  harmony,  and  which  will 
then  assign  its  place  to  every  item  of  that  knowledge 
which  we  shall  have  made  our  own,  concerning  the 
Material  Universe. 

The  perception  we  have  acquired  concerning  the  in- 
ter-relation and  absolute  dependence,  one  upon  another, 
of  moral,  religious,  and  political  questions,  has  not  been 
borrowed  from  the  Physical  Sciences ;  nor  is  it  an  in- 
ference that  has  been  carried  over  from  one  side  of 
philosophy  to  tlie  other :  for  although,  in  its  rise,  it  has 
been  nearly  contemporaneous,  it  has  had  its  own  and  its 
proper  source,  springing  up  from  within  the  intellectual 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  9 

world.  It  is  a  feeling  that  has  flowed  from  a  far  deeper 
mode  of  thinking,  on  all  such  subjects,  than  has  hither- 
to prevailed  ;  and  it  has  shown  the  presence  of  a  more 
serious  desire,  or,  one  might  say,  an  impatience,  an 
anxiety,  almost  an  agony,  impelling  men  to  reach,  if  it 
be  possible,  a  solid  ground  of  belief. 

It  is  natural  and  inevitable  that  this  urgent  feeling 
should  drive  men  in  from  the  surface  of  all  subjects,  and 
compel  them  to  dig,  and  still  to  dig,  until,  from  all 
sides,  they  have  come  to  encounter  each  other,  working 
in  the  same  shafts,  and  pursuing  the  same  seams  and 
veins  of  thought.  From  these  underground  encounters, 
startling  as  they  are  when  they  bring  those  who  beneath 
the  upper  sky  are  declared  adversaries,  face  to  face  in 
the  mine  and  so  near  to  the  very  pith  of  the  world,  will 
lead  (so  I  must  profess  to  think)  to  a  common  under- 
standing, to  a  belief  generally,  if  not  universally  as- 
sented to,  and  to  a  conclusion,  once  for  all  arrived  at, 
and  which  thenceforward  will,  with  its  inferences,  be 
brought  to  bear  upon  every  practical  question  that  can 
be  thought  to  stand  related  to  it  in  morals,  politics,  and 
education,  as  well  as  Religion. 

We  have  not  however,  as  yet,  advanced  quite  abreast 
on  the  two  highroads  of  Philosophy — the  physical  and 
the  intellectual  (or  moral  and  religious) ;  for  on  the  for- 
mer a  rule  is  well  understood  and  is  universally  obej^ed, 
which  on  the  latter  is  but  dimly  seen,  or  is  perpetually 
broken. 

Yv  hat  I  mean  is  this — that  in  all  departments  of  the 
physical  sciences,  both  abstract  and  applicate,  and  on 
all  fields  of  accumulated  industry—  natural  history,  for 
instance — every  one,   every    inquirer,  every  reasoner. 


10  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

every  collector  of  facts,  is  left  to  pursue  his  path  in  his 
own  mode,  and  is  held  to  be  exempt  from  all  interfe- 
rence on  the  part  of  others  ;  as  if  what  one  had  learned 
or  was  teaching,  could  supersede,  or  might  interdict  the 
inquiries  of  another.  Although,  in  the  issue,  there 
will  be  One  Philosophy,  and  although  there  should  be 
fellowship  among  the  labourers,  none  are  to  put  bars 
across  the  paths  of  their  companions.  This  sort  of 
jealousy,  as  it  would  be  groundless,  so  must  it  be  fruit- 
less in  the  end ;  and  meantime  it  would  be  mischiev- 
ous. Nothing  of  this  sort  is  ever  thought  of,  or  at- 
tempted, in  the  world  of  physical  science. 

So  much  as  this  cannot  be  alleged  in  behalf  of  those 
branches  of  philosophy  and  of  learning  which  touch  hu- 
man nature  at  the  core.  On  this  ground  attempts  are 
often  made  to  intercept  the  progress  of  inquiry  in  some 
one  direction,  as  if  it  might  disturb  what  has  been  as- 
certained on  another.  Too  often — and  we  are  all  more 
or  less  in  fault — we  carry  inferences  over  from  one  field 
to  another  ;  or,  w^e  are  in  too  great  haste  so  to  do  ;  for 
undoubtedly,  in  the  end,  all  inferences,  all  deductions, 
"will  interlace  and  join  on  one  another. 

Let  me  state  the  case  in  some  such  way  as  that  in 
which  it  often  meets  us  in  these  times.  I  am  (let  us 
suppose  it)  addicted  to  antiquarianism — to  historical 
criticism — to  ethnological  philology,  and  to  the  kindred 
subjects.  You  perhaps  are  conversant  with  political 
economy,  or  the  like  social  interests,  and  you  amuse 
yourself  also  with  geology.  Now  I  have  convinced  my- 
self in  my  own  modes  of  inquiry,  and  on  my  own  pro- 
per ground,  that  things  are  so  and  so ;  or  that  the 
transactions  of  remote   ages   have  been   truthfully  re- 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  It 

ported.  You  ought  not  then  to  come  in,  and  ^N'ith  a 
supercilious  air  tell  me  that  I  may  as  well  spare  myself 
so  much  learned  toil,  and  that  you  will  be  happy  to 
save  me  the  whole  of  my  expenditure  in  midnight  oil ; 
for  that  you,  in  your  department,  have  ascertained,  be- 
yond doubt,  that  I  have  been  deceiving  myself,  and  am 
blindly  misleading  others.  This  is  insufferable  : — it  is 
not  scientific ;  it  is  an  outrage  committed  upon  the  com- 
mons of  Philosophy.  If  you  say  you  do  but  retaliate ; 
I  reply  I  will  take  care  to  give  you  in  future  no  cause 
of  offence  in  this  way,  and  I  shall  disregard  any  such 
interferences  on  your  part. 

It  is  easy  to  foresee  what  those  occasions  are  in  which 
I  am  likely  to  claim  protection  under  the  shield  of  this 
rule  of  our  modern  Philosophy.  The  rule  itself  is  a 
main  article  in  the  Magna  Charta  of  our  intellectual 
liberties,  and  whoever  infringes  these  privileges,  forfeits 
his  claim  to  be  much  listened  to,  even  on  his  own 
ground. 

I  do  not  say  that  we,  on  our  side — I  mean  the  side 
of  Religious  Belief — have  not  in  any  instances  been 
blameworthy  in  this  same  manner — all  parties  have 
been  persecutors  in  their  time :  but  I  think  I  shall  show 
that  acts  of  attempted  interference,  as  well  as  argu- 
mentative arrogance  and  intolerance,  have  of  late  shown 
themselves  on  the  other  side  in  a  tenfold  proportion. 
Too  much,  and  too  often,  we  on  our  side  have  cowered 
before  the  unseemly  bearing  of  those  who  have  assailed 
us.  If  there  has  been  any  of  this  giving  ground,  it  is 
more  than  enough,  it  is  more  than  was  due ;  and  it  is 
time  that  we  should  repel  all  such  violences.  When  I 
say  rcinl.,  I  mean — not  yield  an  inch  to  those  who  thus 


12  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

offend  against  tlio  acknowledged  maxims  of  what  may 
be  called  the  modern  philosophical  courtesy. 

Not  only  on  my  side  would  I  wholly  abstain  from  the 
language  of  intimidation  or  of  interdiction — not  only 
not  say,  "  you  must  not  approach  this  or  that  subject, 
for  the  ground  is  sacred;"  but  rather  would  invite 
every  one  to  follow  up  his  own  course  of  inquiry  in  the 
mode  that  best  suits  himself.  If  he  does  so  in  a  man- 
ner that  is  unseemly,  flippant,  inconclusive  ;  or  if  he  so 
writes  and  speaks  as  to  betray  an  arrogant  and  captious 
temper,  and  a  sinister  purpose,  in  doing  so  he  provides 
against  himself  a  most  effective  sort  of  reply,  and  I 
need  not  give  myself  any  trouble  on  his  behalf. 

As  to  what  is  written  or  spoken  ingenuously  and  sin- 
cerely, or  as  we  say  "in  good  faith,"  with  the  avowed 
intention  to  loosen  or  subvert  Religious  Belief,  I  will 
never  call  the  author  of  such  utterances  my  enemy.  So 
firm  and  thorough  is  my  own  belief,  that  I  can  well  af- 
ford to  be  thus  charitable, — nay  more :  although  in  re- 
gard to  the  immediate  welfare  of  many  I  must  deeply 
deplore  what  I  see  to  be  taking  place  around  me,  in  all 
circles,  I  have  a  perfect  confidence  in  the  issue,  after  a 
time,  of  the  intellectual  movement  which  is  now  in  pro- 
gress, so  far  as  it  is  impelled  by  honestly  intended  men. 
If  not  every  where,  yet  in  this  country,  such  a  restora- 
tion of  Religious  Belief  as  could  not  have  resulted 
from  any  other  conjunction  of  causes,  will  be  its  conse- 
quence. 

In  what  I  now  propose  to  do  there  is  included  no 
intention  to  take  in  hand  any  recent  book  or  books,  as 
if  to  give  it  or  them  an  answer :  this  would  be  to  enter 
upon  an  endless  and  unavailing  labour.     I  am  not  ig- 


THE    RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  13 

norant  of  what  has  lately  been  written ;  but  I  shall 
pursue  my  own  track  of  thought  in  my  own  mode,  and 
leave  others  to  do  the  like  in  theirs. 

If  I  think  or  speak  of  any  man  as  an  adversary,  I 
do  so  in  a  sense  purely  logical ;  and  I  do  not  allow  the 
word  to  bring  with  it  into  my  bosom  any  of  those  feel- 
ings with  which,  in  fact,  I  regard  the  'principles  he  is 
endeavouring  to  establish.  These  principles  I  utterly 
condemn,  and  the  influence  he  has  acquired  over  the 
minds  of  others  I  would  gladly  destroy ;  but  toward 
himself  I  harbour  no  unkindly  sentiment :  how  should 
I  do  so  when  I  think  of  him  as  struggling,  without  help 
or  hope,  in  the  grasp  of  perplexities  with  which  every 
thoughtful  and  seriously-minded  man  has  had  to  con- 
tend, at  some  stage  of  his  course,  or  does  still  contend 
in  times  of  mental  lassitude.  Those  who  have  suffered 
no  anguish  in  their  past  history,  and  who  have  passed 
through  no  hours  of  agony,  are  men  (enviable  perhaps ! 
but)  with  whom  neither  my  adversary  nor  myself  should 
have  nearly  so  much  sympathy  as  we  should  with  each 
other. 

It  is  much  to  be  wished  that  those  who  at  this  mo- 
moment  are  assailing  Religious  Belief,  would  deny  them- 
selves the  poor  and  cheap  gratification,  in  which  they 
almost  all  of  them  give  themselves  free  leave  to  indulge, 
that  of  calling  the  adherents  and  advocates  of  Belief — 
"  fanatics." 

And  yet,  perhaps,  this  seemingly  arrogant  practice 
should  be  pardoned  in  those  guilty  of  it,  inasmuch  as  it 
does  not  necessarily  spring  from  an  intolerant  temper, 
or  personal  malignity  ;  but  comes  only  from  the  felt 
necessity  of  the  position  in  which  those,   on  that  side, 

2 


14  THE   RESTORATION   OP   BELIEF. 

have  placed  themselves :  for  if  indeed  those  whose  be- 
lief these  writers  assail  are  not  "fanatics;"  if,  on  the 
contrary,  they,  or  many  of  them,  are  as  well  informed 
and  as  highly  cultured  and  as  capable  of  reasoning  as 
themselves,  if  they  are  equally  serious  and  honest, 
and  in  a  word,  are  everyway  as  "good  men,"  and 
all  the  while  are  believers,  then  is  Belief  proved 
to  be  reasonable ;  for  reasonable  men  profess  it, 
and  the  contrary  assumption  falls  to  the  ground ; 
then  is  Belief  that  conclusion  which  will  be  accepted 
and  rested  in,  after  full  inquiry,  by  the  great  majority 
of  minds  in  a  sound  state.  So  it  will  be,  those  seasons 
of  reaction  excepted,  like  the  present,  in  which  a  re- 
vulsion is  taking  place  and  which  is  attributable  to 
obvious  causes. 

Whoever  calls  me  a  fanatic,  simply  because  I  be- 
lieve, puts  into  my  hand  a  lever  by  means  of  which  I 
shall  upheave  his  stronghold. 


Great  arguments,  we  have  said,  cannot  be  long  held 
apart,  or  permanently  disjoined.  As  this  is  true  in 
natural  philosophy,  so  especially  is  it  true  in  whatever 
touches  human  nature  and  the  social  welfare  of  man, 
morally  or  religiously.  It  is  not  easy  to  disconnect 
even  questions  of  politics  with  religious  principles ;  for 
through  the  medium  either  of  questions  concerning 
Religious  Establishments,  or  of  Religious  Liberty,  or 
Public  Education,  the  one  set  of  principles  interlocks 
itself  with  the  other. 

Take  up  what  subject  we  may  among  the  many 
which  now  engage  attention,  one  must  reckon  upon 
the  entailed  necessity  of  passing  on  from  that  point  to 
its  next  neighbour,  and  so  forward.  Nevertheless  a 
choice  may  be  open  to  us  always  as  to  the  starting- 
point  that  is  taken. 

Of  some  of  these  arguments  it  may  be  said  that 
they  possess  an  inherent  logical  title  to  precedence: 
they  present  themselves  as  first  to  be  disposed  of  in 
the  order  of  dialectic  sequence.  For  other  weiglity 
questions  it  may  be  pretended  that,  if  determined  in  a 
certain  mode,  they  bring  all  other  argumentation,  all 
balancing  of  probabilities,  all  inquiries  concerning  pos- 
sible improvements  or  progress,  to  a  dead  stop ;  they 
throw  a  pall  over  the  world,  and  its  fruitless  agitations. 

Again,  there  are  questions  aflfecting  the  welfare  of 

(15) 


IG  THE    RESTORATION    OF    RELIEF. 

classes  which  cry  for  instant  consideration,  if,  indeed, 
hearts  of  flesh  beat  in  our  bosomsu.  Of  what  account 
are  dogmas,  or  principles  of  any  sort,  when  placed  in 
comparison  with  practical  measures,  tending  to  assuage 
physical  suffering,  or  to  gladden  the  homes  of  thou- 
sands of  our  fellow-men  ?  Such  pleas  are  good  ;  but 
they  need  not  overrule  our  present  purposes.  Let 
every  one  take  to  the  path  that  best  suits  himself. 

If  a  preference  is  given  to  subjects  not  of  this  lat- 
ter urgent  sort,  and  which  affect  the  welfare,  not  of 
classes  of  men,  but  of  men  universally,  we  may  then 
make  our  choice  in  adopting  one  of  two  methods — the 
first  of  which  may  be  called  the  German,  and  the 
other  the  English  mode. 

The  German  mind  inclines  to  begin  at  the'  begin- 
ning, rather  than  to  seize  the  main  point  midway,  or  to 
catch  it  in  its  concrete  form.  Whatever  it  has  to  do 
with,  although  it  be  a  surface  question,  it  takes  a  pre- 
liminary plunge  among  the  most  profound  abstractions. 
A  metaphysical,  more  than  a  scientific,  law  of  thought 
prevails  with  it,  and  the  simplest  adjustment  of  things 
about  us  must  show  its  reason,  as  related  to  a  theory 
of  the  universe,  which,  perhaps,  has  scarcely  yet  fledged 
itself,  as  newly  broken  forth  from  chaos. 

Not  so  the  English  mind,  which  has  more  inclina- 
tion toward  the  concrete  than  the  abstract.  At  least 
we  must  say  it  seeks  the  practical,  loves  whatever  is 
well-defined  and  certain,  and  never  hesitates  to  accept 
and  use  what  is  sure  and  at  hand,  although  much  room 
there  may  be  left  for  argument  on  the  a  j^yiori  side. 

In    the   present   instance,   then,    I    must   make    my 


THE   RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  17 

choice  of  a  preliminary  subject  in  compliance  with  the 
tendency  of  the  English  mind. 

At  this  time,  when  all  things  are  brought  into  doubt, 
if  there  be  in  sight  a  path  that  is  open  and  straight 
before  us, — if  there  be,  on  any  side,  ground  that  feels 
firm  to  the  foot, — if  quite  near  at  hand  there  are  objects 
that  are  palpable, — if  around  us  we  may  see  what  we 
have  known  to  be  good,  and  which  is-  our  own ,  then 
upon  such  a  path  will  we  set  forward,  upon  such  ground 
will  we  first  essay  to  tread,  such  objects  will  we  grasp, 
and  to  such  possession  will  we  assert  our  right.  Thence, 
and  from  such  ground,  will  we  adventure  forward  and 
outward,  toward  the  dark  unknown. 

I  shall  here  be  stopped  by  an  exception  taken  against 
any  renewal  of  the  endeavour  to  link  Religion  to  His- 
tory, or  to  send  us  back  for  our  faith  and  morals  to  past 
ages.  I  must  do  so  from  the  very  necessity  of  the  case. 
Belief  and  History  God  has  joined,  nor  shall  man, 
to  the  end  of  time,  succeed  in  effecting  a  divorce.  Re- 
ligion, disjoined  from  History,  is  a  flickering  candle, 
held  in  the  hand  of  one  who  looks  back  upon  utter 
darkness  behind  him,  and  looks  into  the  blackness  of 
darkness  in  front  of  him. 

But  besides  this  inherent  necessity  of  the  case,  there 
meets  us  an  adjunctive  necessity  for  taking  the  same 
course,  and  for  travelling  back  to  ages  past.  Even  if 
Belief  and  History  were  not  thus  wedded.  Disbelief 
has  its  equally  firm  hold  upon  antiquity.  In  every 
form  of  it,  it  has  its  ancestry,  and  it  must  not  ask 
now  to  be  spoken  to  as  if  we  had  not  already,  and  lang 
ago,  made  acquaintance  with  it. 

Is  it,  indeed,  to  be  reckoned  as  a  fault,  or  is  it  a 

2* 


18  THE   RESTORATION   OF    BELIEF. 

disqualification  for  engaging  in  argument,  to  have  be- 
come, in  some  degree,  conversant  with  the  fortunes  of 
man  in  past  time  ?  If  not,  then  this  species  of  ac- 
complishment brings  with  it  an  irresistible  feeling, 
prompting  one  to  recognize  in  "what  is  recent,  the  very 
counterpart  of  what  is  of  remote  origin. 

It  is  not  merely  this,  that  the  special  objections 
■which  have  been  of  late  urged  against  Christianity, 
against  the  Old  Testament  Books,  and  the  New,  are 
all  substantially  the  same  as  those  which  Origen  and 
the  early  Apologists  encountered  and  refuted.  This  is 
not  all ;  for  those  speculations,  more  deep  and  wide, 
more  sweeping  and  formidable  in  aspect,  which  just 
now  are  redressed  and  presented  as  the  ripened  fruits 
of  the  human  mind,  which  at  length  is  freeing  itself 
from  its  thraldom  of  centuries — these  same  speculations, 
fresh  complexioned  as  they  are,  differ  in  little,  beside 
their  wording,  from  the  profundities  of  the  Oriental 
and  Alexandrine  philosophy,  as  uttered  and  edited  by 
the  several  classes  of  Gnostics,  Manichees,  and  others. 
If,  then.  Belief  carries  us  back  to  antiquity,  so  does 
Misbelief;  and  we  cannot  refuse  to  follow  a  double 
guidance,  that  is  sure  in  both  instances. 

As  a  proper  preliminary,  therefore,  to  any  inquiries 
that  may  touch  the  philosophy  of  human  nature,  or 
implicate  what  is  abstruse  in  theology,  I  must  persist 
in  the  course  I  have  chosen ;  and  shall  essay  to  tread 
upon  solid  ground  as  far  forward  as  it  offers  itself  to 
the  foot.  History  ib  solid  ground  ;  or,  to  exclude  ex- 
ceptions, let  us  say  that,  within  the  region  it  embraces 
perfectly  solid  ground  is  discoverable  in  all  directions. 
This   is   manifestly  the  case  when  certain  historic   po- 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  19 

sitions  are  brouglit  into  comparison,  as  to  their  demon- 
strative value,  with  any  assumed  principles  of  abstract 
science  (not  mathematical).  It  is  certain  that  the 
Normans  brought  the  Saxons  under  their  sway  in  the 
eleventh  century  ;  but  it  is  questionable  whether  a 
chivalrous  race  Avill  always  succeed  in  vanquishing  an 
agricultural  and  a  trading  people.  It  is  certain  that 
Augustus  established  and  consolidated  a  despotism 
upon  the  ruins  of  that  republic,  in  the  attempt  to 
maintain  which  Brutus  pointed  his  sword  against 
Coesar,  and  in  despair  of  restoring  which  he  fell  upon 
it  himself.  But  it  may  be  doubted  whether  a  republi- 
can government,  such  as  that  of  ancient  Rome,  neces- 
sarily finds  its  end  and  issue  in  the  hands  of  an  auto- 
crat. It  is  more  certain  that  Socrates  swallowed  hem- 
lock by  the  vote  of  his  fellow-citizens,  than  it  is  that 
a  people  like  the  Athenians,  of  that  age  must  have 
been  taught  to  listen  to  and  admire  Plato,  before  they 
could  tolerate  teaching  such  as  that  of  Socrates. 

But  now,  although  matters  of  history  do  possess  this 
absolute  and  this  comparative  certainty  when  placed 
beside  abstruse  or  abstract  principles  ;  and  although  it 
be  true  that  no  inferences  from  those  principles  can 
ever  be  admitted  to  abate  a  jot  of  tbe  certainty  of 
what  is  certain  in  history,  this  relative  value  of  the 
two  species  of  evidence  will  not  be  seen  by  all  minds 
alike.  On  the  contrary,  some  minds  from  want  of  cul- 
ture, some  from  an  irresistible  propensity  toward 
paradox,  some  from  a  vague  and  dreamy  unfixedness 
of  temper,  will  always  fly  ofl*  from  the  better  evidence, 
and  betake  themselves  to  the  worse. 

With  many,  the  most  misty  abstractions  which  look 


20  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

■well  at  a  distance  are  eagerly  pursued :  matters  of  fact, 
irresistibly  evident,  are  scouted  or  forgotten.  Culture 
has  much  to  do  with  that  faculty  of  the  understanding 
on  which  history  lays  a  firm  hold.  Apart  from  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  culture,  we  do  not  find  that  history,  as 
a  reality  past,  comes  home  to  the  intellectual  conscious- 
ness. Hence  springs  a  disadvantage  attaching,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  to  the  labors  of  those  who  aim  to 
impart  an  historic  belief  to  the  masses  of  the  people  in 
the  way  of  definite  proof.  The  process  finds  an  indis- 
pensable quality  wanting  in  those  who  are  the  subjects 
of  it :  hence  too,  of  course,  comes  that  poor  advantage 
which  is  snatched  at  by  those  whose  aim  it  is  to  loosen 
an  historic  belief  from  the  minds  of  the  same  classes. 

There  is  nothing  of  arrogance  in  what  is  here  al- 
leged. Every  educated  man,  whether  preacher,  lecturer, 
or  teacher,  in  any  line,  scientific,  literary,  or  profes- 
sional, well  knows,  and  constantly  feels,  that,  do  his  ut- 
most, it  is  but  a  fragment  of  his  own  vivid  perceptions 
of  his  subject  that  he  can  lodge  in  the  reason  and  the 
imagination  of  his  imperfectly  instructed  hearers. 
Therefore  will  it  always  be  an  easy  task,  in  dealing  with 
such,  to  dislodge  materials  that  have  no  cement,  and  to 
strew  the  ground  with  the  ruins  of  a  structure  that  has 
not  settled  down  on  its  foundations,  and  has  no  coher- 
ence. Because  it  is  so  easy  to  do  this,  writers  who  are 
impatient  to  win  notoriety,  and  who  would  fain  be  fol- 
lowed by  troops  of  disciples,  address  themselves,  with- 
out scruple,  to  those  whose  consent,  when  obtained,  has 
no  value  ;  and  whose  plaudits  should  make  a  wise  and 
sincere  man  blush. 

In  all  departments  of  knowledge  it  is   the  results 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  21 

thnt  are  for  the  many ;  Lut  the  process  tlii'ougia  Avliich 
results  have  been  reached  are  for  the  few.  Especially 
must  it  be  so  in  the  departments  of  history  and  criti- 
cism. Results  may  be  rendered  into  the  vernacular;  and 
when  thus  translated  they  become  public  property. 
Processes  of  inquiry  are  carried  forward  in  symbol,  and 
these  signs  always  imply  that  a  knowledge  is  already 
possessed,  ten  times  outmeasuring  that  to  which  the 
bare  symbol  gives  expression.  The  imperfectly  edu- 
cated suffer  no  real  damage  on  this  ground,  so  long  as 
they  are  not  tampered  with  by  sophists.  Where  the 
Press,  the  Pulpit,  the  Platform,  the  Class-room,  are 
quite  free,  popular  incompetency,  as  to  matters  of  sci- 
ence or  of  learning,  as  it  cannot  be  much  abused  by 
the  privileged,  so  should  it  not  be  wrought  upon,  flat- 
tered, and  cajoled  by  ambitious  declaimers. 

There  is  a  ripened  condition  of  the  faculties,  there  is 
a  state  of  plenary  consciousness  toward  the  things,  the 
persons,  the  events  of  past  time,  which  is  the  fruit  of 
high  culture  and  of  life-long  habits.  This  consciousness, 
this  mental  existence,  carried  back  into  the  heart  of 
antiquity,  supersedes  what,  in  a  logical  sense,  may  be 
required  in  the  way  of  Evidences  and  Proofs. 

A  man  sits  surrounded  with  the  books  of  all  ages  : 
among  these  he  has  passed  the  best  years  of  his  life. 
He  has  gone  in  and  out  among  them :  through  their 
very  substance  he  has  made  a  path  for  himself,  in  the 
course  of  methodical  study ;  and  with  these  he  has  con- 
versed, discursively,  as  accident  might  lead  him.  Now 
we  may  imagine  these  his  companions  to  be  set  out  in 
chronological  perspective  on  his  tables  and  carpet,  right 
and  left,  each  ascending  to  its  date.     Thus  placed,  they 


22  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

are  so  many  candles  lit,  shedding  their  beams  over  the 
expanse  of  centuries,  up  to  the  remotest  eras.  Many 
deep  shadows  still  rest  upon  spots  and  spaces  of  this 
landscape  ;  nevertheless,  wherever  thelight does  fall,  the 
outlines  of  things  are  perfectly  defined,  and  the  colours 
are  bright. 

Besides,  as  the  books  are  phosphorescent  in  the  view 
of  their  possessor,  so  are  the  multifarious  contents  of 
the  cabinets  around  him :  so  are  the  antique  busts  that 
occupy  the  brackets  :  and,  "  as  face  answereth  to  face 
in  a  glass,"  so  do  the  visages  and  the  legends  of  me- 
dallions and  of  sculptures  answer  to,  interpret,  and  sus- 
tain the  pages  of  the  historians,  poets,  and  philosophers, 
of  the  corresponding  times.  Taken  altogether,  or  con- 
sidered in  their  aggregate  efi'ect,  these  accumulated  ma- 
terials give  a  familiarity  and  an  assurance  to  the  historic 
consciousness  which  does  not  rate  lower  than  does  the 
feeling  as  to  any  class  of  objects  that  are  not  actually 
present  to  the  senses. 

Yet  how  much  of  this  feeling  will  it  be  possible  for 
this  same  man  of  culture  to  impart  to  one  whose  educa- 
tion has  been  elementary  only  ?  Not  a  thousandth  part 
of  it ;  and  if  the  recipient  of  such  a  communication, 
along  with  an  ordinary  measure  of  native  intelligence, 
brings  with  him  a  smack  of  conceit ;  if,  in  his  case,  ig- 
norance, instead  of  being  simply  negative,  has  gone  into 
the  positive  form  of  a  shrewd  scepticism,  then  the  bring- 
ing forward  of  book-evidence  and  of  antiquarian  cor- 
roborations may  be  found  to  have  produced  the  very 
contrary  of  their  proper  effect.  This  man,  who  is  one 
"not  soon  imposed  upon,"  had  come  forward  apprehen- 
sive that  he  should  perhaps  be  robbed  by  force  of  his 


THE    KESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  23 

disbelief:  instead  of  this,  he  has  seen  and  heard 
nothing  that  he  has  really  understood ;  and  he  departs 
with  his  reason  confused,  and  his  vanity  entire. 

What  then  is  the  inference  hence  resulting  ?  It  is 
just  this — that,  knowing  these  things,  the  well-informed, 
the  honestly-intending,  the  seriously-minded,  will  scorn 
the  easy  triumph  of  trampling  in  the  dust  the  Religious 
Belief  of  the  people — the  uneducated  and  the  half- 
educated. 

Do  I  say  this  because  I  inwardly  mistrust  my  argu- 
ment, and  shrink  from  the  light,  and  foresee  what  must 
be  the  issue  of  an  open  discussion  ?  I  shall  show  you 
that  any  such  surmise  as  this,  on  your  part,  if  you  en- 
tertain it,  is  wholly  unfounded.  What  I  shrink  from  is 
not  light,  but  darkness ;  what  I  am  afraid  of  is  not  the 
brightness  of  day  and  the  fresh  breezes  of  the  upper 
skies ; — what  I  am  afraid  of  is  that  choke-damp  of  po- 
pular ignorance,  into  which  the  assailants  of  Religious 
Belief  shall  not  tempt  me  to  descend  in  pursuit  of 
them. 

Besides,  to  follow  severally,  those  who  of  late  have 
assailed  the  Christian  Belief  of  the  people,  in  the  way  of 
reply,  would  be,  on  our  part,  to  descend  from  our  true 
position,  and  implicitly  give  way  to  an  utterly  false 
idea  of  Christianity  itself.  We  should  thus  come  to 
think  of  it  as  a  something  artificial  and  fragile,  which 
the  bringing  forward  of  objections,  difficulties,  flaws  on 
its  surface,  this  and  that,  ten,  twenty,  a  hundred  doubts, 
might  and  must  destroy.  We  should  then  feel  as  if 
Christianity  were  a  casting  of  that  sort  (as  founders 
say)  in  which  there  is  such  a  condition  of  internal  ten- 
sion by  unequal  cooling — such  a  strain  upon  the  interior 


24  THE   RESTOllATION   OF   BELIEF. 

coherence  of  particles,  that,  if  you  do  but  scratch  the 
surface  with  a  nail,  or  break  off  a  corner,  the  whole  flies 
into  atoms. 

This  is  very  much  the  feeling  with  which  one  rises 
from  the  perusal,  not  merely  of  books  written  to  im- 
pugn Christianity,  but  often  of  books  written  to  defend 
it.  This  idea  of  the  matter  in  hand  is,  I  say,  wholly  a 
mistaken  notion.  The  anxiety  that  springs  from  it,  and 
which  disturbs  so  much  the  minds  of  those  who  do  be- 
lieve, or  who  would  fain  continue  so  to  do,  is  quite 
groundless ;  under  the  influence  of  it  one  says,  in  a 
desponding  tone.  What  if  this  or  that  difiiculty  cannot 
be  cleared  up?  And  then  there  are  twenty  more  in 
reserve  !  How  can  we  hope  to  cut  our  way  out  from 
among  this  jungle  of  thorns  ? 

It  is  a  very  commendable  labour  with  which  those 
charge  themselves,  who  sit  down  to  meet  and  obviate 
objections,  seriatim,  to  reconcile  inconsistencies,  real  or 
apparent,  to  harmonize  discrepant  narratives,  and  to 
draw  the  line  close  around  a  difficulty,  reducing  it  to  its 
minimum  of  importance.  All  this  should  be  done  ;  but 
it  is  better  done  in  books  devoted  to  philological  and  his- 
torical criticism,  and  in  which  questions  are  treated  ac- 
cording to  their  abstract  merits  and  their  real  import, 
apart  from  any  allusion  to  what  is  flippant  or  disin- 
genuous in  the  writing  of  declared  opponents.  But  as 
to  Christianity  itself,  those  who  think  that  it  is  to  be 
brought  into  doubt,  or  that  it  will  be  exposed  to  pei-il 
by  means  of  cavils  in  detail,  or  even  by  the  allegation 
of  difficulties  that  defy  solution,  such  persons,  whether 
notions  of  this  sort  inspire  them  with  hopes  of  a  tri- 
umph for   infidelity,  or  depress  them  with  fear  as  be- 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  25 

lievers,  can  never  have  apprehended  what  this  Gospel  is 
in  itself,  what  it  intends,  how  it  stands  related  to 
human  nature,  or  the  well-being  of  nations,  to  the  desti- 
nies of  the  human  family.  Such  persons,  whether  they 
be  overweening  disbelievers,  or  timid  and  mistrusting 
believers,  are  burrowing  hither  and  thither  under  the 
sward,  unconscious  of  what  is  seen  and  felt  in  the  open 
world. 

No  problem,  historical  or  critical,  presenting  itself 
for  solution,  should  be  negligently  dealt  with,  or  timidly 
evaded ;  much  less  disingenuously  smothered  or  con- 
jured out  of  the  way.  Difficulties  and  objections  thus 
disposed  of,  are  so  much  gunpowder,  stowed  away  by 
our  own  hands,  beneath  the  foundations  of  the  house 
we  live  in. 

What  I  propose  to  do  in  the  following  pages  is  not  to 
wrestle  with  gainsayers,  sincere  or  insincere,  on  low 
levels,  nor  to  tread  anew  a  ground  that  has  already 
been  trodden  hard.  Work  of  this  sort  has  been  well 
done ;  and  no  one  who,  in  a  spirit  of  industry  and  ho- 
nesty, would  inform  himself  concerning  the  "  Evidences 
of  Christianity,"  the  "authenticity  and  genuineness 
of  the  Gospels  and  Epistles,"  or  any  kindred  subjects, 
need  be  at  a  loss  in  finding  books,  learnedly  and  con- 
clusively written,  where  he  may  meet  with  more  than 
enough  of  proof  and  argument  to  satisfy  every  seri- 
ously-minded and  educated  reader. 

Nevertheless  it  is  true  that  such  readers  do  rise  from 
the  perusal  of  these  books,  confusedly  convinced,  and 
not  fairly  or  finally  rid  of  their  misgivings.  It  is  to 
them  as  if  Infidelity  had  been  mortally  wounded,  and 
lay  at  their  feet  as  dead ;  but  the  carcase  has  not  been 

3 


26  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF 

removed  or  buried  out  of  their  sight,  and  they  eye  it 
with  dread,  as  expecting  its  resurrection.  They  have 
concerned  themselves  Avith  negations  ;  they  have  car- 
ried their  eye  too  close  to  the  object  before  them :  they 
have  failed  to  come  into  correspondence  with  what  is 
POSITIVE  in  the  Gospel :  they  have  lost,  or  not  yet  ac- 
quired, sympathy  with  that  in  it  which,  to  those  who 
occupy  a  better  position,  is  seen  to  be  great,  is  felt  to 
be  true,  is  found  to  be  real. 

So  far  as  at  this  time  a  Restoration  of  Belief  may 
be  looked  for  as  probable,  either  in  single  instances,  or 
as  to  the  community,  it  will  be  brought  about,  not  by 
conflict  or  compromise  with  negations  or  exceptions,  not 
by  forcing  a  path  through  the  briars  of  doubt;  but  by 
pushing  our  Avay  straightforward  toward  the  positive, 
and  by  apprehending,  so  far  as  the  finite  may  do  it,  the 
infinite. 


A  RESTORATION  of  BELIEF,  -whether  we  think  of  it  as 
an  argumentative  and  logical  process,  or  as  a  change 
produced  by  means  that  are  suasive  and  moral,  demands 
conditions  such  as  shall  be  thereto  favourable.  At  this 
present  moment  it  is  in  this  country,  and  nowhere  else 
throughout  the  civilized  world,  that  these  requisites  are 
to  be  found  in  full  measure.  It  is  within  the  circuit  of 
the  British  islands  that  every  reasonable  exception 
against  the  conclusiveness  of  an  argument  concerning 
Christianity  is  shut  out — even  to  the  shadow  of  a  pre- 
text, as  if  a  fair  hearing  of  the  adverse  part  had  not 
been  allowed. 

Some  things  touching  our  condition  as  a  Christian 
people,  which  may  seem,  and  which  indeed  are,  anoma- 
lous, and  which,  under  certain  of  their  aspects,  give  us 
much  uneasiness,  do  most  decisively  favour  any  endea- 
vour that  may  be  made  to  win  back  to  Christianity 
those  among  us  who  may  have  lapsed  into  unbelief. 

It  is  easy  to  narrow  the  area,  geographically,  within 
which  an  argument,  such  as  the  one  before  us,  could  be 
carried  forward  to  any  good  purpose.  Might  we  claim 
a  fifth,  or  even  a  seventh  part  of  Christendom  as  af- 
fording open  ground  for  our  purpose  ?  I  think  not. 
Throughout  Christendom,  that  is  to  say,  wherever  there 
has  survived  any  knowledge  of  the  Gospel,  wherever  a 
glimmer  of  the  light  of  heaven  still  shines,  there,  in 

(27) 


28  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

corners  and  recesses,  might  be  found  solitaries,  or  per- 
haps sincere  men  enough,  in  a  cluster,  to  make  up  a 
Church  in  Tertullian's  sense,  Ubi  tres,  ibi  Ecclesia. 
But  these  exceptive  cases,  precious  as  they  are  in  the 
sight  of  Heaven,  can  be  of  no  account  as  to  our  im- 
mediate purpose.  Yfe  are  not  attempting  to  number 
the  Faithful  among  the  living ;  but  are  in  search  of  a 
field  that  is  adapted  to  movements  on  a  large  scale. 

In  relation  to  any  such  purpose,  no  place  can  we  as- 
sign, in  our  geography  of  Christianity,  to  nations, 
called  Christian,  that,  in  fact,  have  no  liberty,  if  they 
Tvere  so  inclined,  to  profess  themselves  otherwise.  Nor 
any  place  can  we  grant  in  our  atlas  to  a  people  who 
have  not  actually  in  their  hands,  generally,  and  who 
from  habit  and  feeling  have  not  become,  individually, 
conversant  with  the  BOOK,  concerning  the  authority  of 
which  an  argument  is  to  be  had.  Even  those  who  assail 
this  authority  must  profess  to  wish  that  the  "public" 
ihey  appeal  to  may  be  competent  to  assent,  as  from  its 
own  knowledge,  to  the  allegations,  derogatory  to  the 
credit  of  the  Scriptures  which  they  bring  forward. 
Certainly  we,  on  our  side,  should  choose  our  hearers 
and  readers  from  among  those  who  "  search  the  Scrip- 
tures daily,"  and  who,  in  a  manner,  know  them  by 
heart. 

Thus  it  is  then  that  our  line  must  be  so  drawn  in,  as 
that  it  shall  include  none  but  the  Teutonic  branches  of 
tbe  European  family.  And  even  as  to  these,  we  must 
still  make  exceptions : — we  must  make  exceptions  until, 
to  say  the  truth  at  once,  it  will  amount  to  this — that, 
in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word,  it  is  the  English  people 
alone,  alone  in  the  old  world,  that  is  now  Christian. 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  29 

Let  me  exempt  myself  from  the  imputation  of  indulg- 
ing illiberal  prejudices  when  I  so  broadly  speak. 

One  might  almost  say  that,  just  now,  the  British 
people  stands  among  the  nations  as  the  surviving  Trus- 
tee of  Christianity,  or  as  the  Residuary  Legatee  of  its 
benefits. 

Let  those  who  reject  Chi'istianity  make  what  use  they 
please  of  this  admission,  and  get  from  it  all  the  infer- 
ential aid  which  it  may  afford  them.  The  fact,  if  it 
can  be  serviceable  on  that  side,  is  theirs.  But  the 
genuine  inference,  thence  deduceable,  I  take  to  be 
available  on  my  side,  with  a  tenfold  weight  of  meaning. 

This  fact  has  two  aspects ;  or  we  might  blend  the 
two  in  one  conclusion.  It  may  be  affirmed  first,  that 
Christianity,  considered  as  a  system  of  religious  and 
moral  principles,  is  of  such  a  nature  that  it  will  be  sure 
to  find  its  way  toward  that  one  community,  within  the 
circle  of  civilization,  which,  by  national  temperament, 
is  the  most  energetic,  which  the  most  instinctively  em- 
braces doctrines  that  are  seen  to  be  practically  good, 
which  makes  its  elections,  in  matters  of  opinion,  with 
the  most  absolute  freedom,  a  freedom  uncontrollably 
impatient  of  restraint  or  interference.  Christianity 
chooses  for  itself  a  people  preeminently  spontaneous  in 
all  its  doings ;  self-governing,  and  in  an  equal  degree 
loving  order ;  abhorrent  of  despotism ;  unknowing  in 
disguises ;  and  silent  or  acquiescent,  much  rather  from 
a  sullen  consciousness  of  individual  independence,  than 
from  servility  or  fear.  Such  is  the  people  (as  compared 
with  others)  to  the  hearth  of  which  Christ's  religion 
has  at  length  drawn  itself,  as  if  retiiing  to  its  own 
home-     Among  such  a  pcoplcj  when  hunted  from  all 


3* 


30  THE    RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

other  lands,  has  this  religion  been  ■vyelcomed,  and  has 
found  its  asylum. 

But  looking  at  the  same  facts  in  their  other  aspect, 
we  should  be  free  to  think  of  Christianity  as  that  plastic 
power  which,  in  the  course  of  many  centuries,  and  es- 
pecially during  the  last  three,  has  itself  made  the  peo- 
ple what  they  are.  It  is  the  Gospel  that  has  wrought 
itself  into  the  national  temper,  and  has  moulded  us  so 
much  to  its  own  fashion.  It  is  the  Gospel  which  has 
planted  in  our  bosoms  that  sense  of  individuality,  that 
seriousness  of  conviction,  which  despotism  dreads,  and 
can  never  crush.  It  is  this  deep  belief,  and  this  sense 
of  the  authority  of  truth,  which  has  come  to  be  a  na- 
tional characteristic,  and  which  is  the  ultimate  guaran- 
tee of  our  liberties,  religious  and  political.  It  is  this 
Gospel  that  has  given  us  our  higher  tone  of  domestic 
virtue,  our  relish  for  home,  our  home-bred  feelinjrs,  and 
our  true  idea  of  personal  delicacy,  and  our  sense  of  in- 
dividual importance,  consistently  with  individual  mo- 
desty. It  is  thence,  and  from  the  vernacular  diffusion, 
and  the  daily  usage  and  hearing  of  the  Scriptures,  that 
we  have  drawn  the  power  and  point,  the  simplicity  and 
the  majesty,  the  tropical  richness,  the  rhetoric  opu- 
lence, and  the  fervour  of  our  conversational  style,  and 
public  oratory. 

Combine  what  is  proper  to  each  of  these  aspects  of 
the  same  facts,  and  then  the  result,  expressed  in  a 
word,  is  this  —  that  Christianity,  in  its  migrations 
through  eighteen  centuries,  has  betaken  itself  to  the 
British  People,  as  if  these  were  iU  oivn,  and  that 
these,  under  its  influence,  and  at  its  inspiration,  have 
become   such   as   they   are — if    not   the   most   highly 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  31 

educated  among  the  nations,  yet  the  most  effective, 
the  most  beneficent,  the  most  humane,  and  the  people 
to  whose  purposes  and  labours  the  world  looks  for 
whatever  is  good  and  hopeful. 

For  a  reason  I  shall  presently  mention,  it  is  not 
even  among  our  brethren  and  sons  of  the  United 
States  that  a  conclusive  course  of  argument,  touching 
Christianity,  could  be  carried  forward  in  a  manner 
exempt  from  reasonable  exceptions. 

The  Christian  Argument  does  indeed  demand 
liberty  as  its  indispensable  condition  ;  but  it  is  not  a 
vague  or  unemphatic  liberty  that  will  suflSce.  It  is 
not  mere  freedom  to  breathe  and  to  speak,  such  as 
you  may  find  on  the  table  lands  of  central  Asia,  or 
in  the  midst  of  the  Sahara  ;  but  the  earnest-minded 
and  force-fraught  liberty,  the  freedom  positive  which 
one  is  conscious  of  enjoying  in  the  dense  centre  of  a 
people  whose  minds  (unshackled  in  every  sense  of 
the  word)  are  headed  up  by  solid  embankments,  by 
Institutions  :  it  is  that  liberty  which  gives  a  strong 
pulse  to  the  energies  of  men,  individually  and  socially : 
it  is  the  liberty  of  men  who,  as  individuals,  and  as 
bodies,  or  as  classes,  differ  from  each  other  resolutely, 
who  oppose  each  other  pertinaciously,  and  who  contend 
for  their  opinions,  as  for  their  prerogatives,  with  a 
vehemence  stopping  short  only  at  the  border  beyond 
which  the  rights  and  properties  of  others  would  bo 
invaded. 

What  we  need  for  carrying  forward  an  unexcep- 
tionable argument  in  defence  of  Christianity  is,  the 
consciousness  in  every  man's  feeling,  not  merely  that 
without  rebuke,  he  may  become  as  wise  as  he  can,  and 


32  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

may  profess  and  teach  what  he  thinks  to  be  true  and 
good ;  but  more  than  this,  that  he  may  humour  himself 
among  his  crotchets,  and  be  as  absurd  as  he  pleases; 
that  he  may  proclaim  his  whim,  whatever  it  be,  and 
endow  it  too,  and  spend  upon  it  his  fortune  and  his 
children's  inheritance.  Within  a  community  empha- 
tically free,  every  thing  may  be  said,  done,  and 
practised,  which  does  not,  in  an  overt  manner,  inflict 
damage  upon  others :  and  then  all  such  things  may  be 
assailed,  rebuked,  and  put  to  shame  with  equal 
freedom. 

If   we   are  to    pursue    our    course    in  a   promising 
manner,  and  if  indeed  we  may  hope  to  reach  a  con- 
clusion, not  afterwards  to  be  rejected  as   precipitate, 
we  must  not  betake  ourselves  to   countries  where  the 
people  are   told   that   the   liberty  they  enjoy  is  that 
of    choosing    whether    they    will   be  reduced   to   the 
mummy  state,  after    this    fashion    or    that,  when  the 
immortal    soul  has    been   pressed   out  of  the    animal 
man  by  despotism.     Nor  will  it  be  enough  for  us  to 
know    that,    albeit    intelligible     questions     concerning 
existing  institutions  are  straitly  prohibited,  the  wilds 
of  abstruse  speculation   are  free  land  ;   that  the  back- 
woods of  philosophy  have  not  been  parcelled  out,  and 
that  "Government"  maintains  no  police  in  the  Sheol 
of  Universal  Disbelief.     Among  the   Teutonic  nations 
of  Continental  Europe,  can  we  think  it  likely  that   the 
Christian  argument  will  be  carried  forward  toward  a 
determinate  issue  ? 

We,  that  is  to  say  the  English  on  this  side  the 
Atlantic,  hold  a  decisive  advantage,  even  in  comparison 
with  our  brethren  in  the  United  States.     Grant  it  that 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  33 

their  liberty  is  much  like  our  own ;  and  they  may 
think  it  more  entire  than  ours ;  or  at  least  that  it  is 
more  theoretically  consistent :  so  it  may  be  ;  but  on 
that  very  account  it  is  of  less  value  than  our  own  ; 
and  it  produces  a  less  marked  impression  upon  the 
national  mind :  if  it  shows  a  wider  surface,  it  embraces 
less  of  deep  purpose,  and  it  is  less  resolute.  No  Code- 
making,  no  legislation  according  to  theory,  or  in  re- 
spect of  the  principles  of  "  abstract  justice,"  will  give 
a  people  that  which  our  history  has  given  ourselves : 
our  social  condition  is  the  giant-limbed  offspring  of 
the  many  struggles  we  have  passed  through.  If  the 
American  liberties  are  also  the  fruits  of  events,  these 
have  gone  into  theory :  with  us  they  have  issued  in 
the  creation  of  those  beneficial  anomalies  which  no 
theory  would  every  allow ;  but  which,  in  the  working 
of  a  constitutional  system,  are  far  more  serviceable 
to  a  people  than  any  thing  which  men  sit  down  to 
contrive  for  themselves.  Antagonisms  come^  they  are 
never  called  for.  Anomalies  confront  us  unbidden; 
they  perplex  us  ;  we  quarrel  with  them ;  but  against 
our  consent,  they  secure  to  us  the  very  highest  advan- 
tages. So  is  it  especially  in  whatever  touches  the 
ecclesiastical  framework  under  which  we  live  and  act. 

One  of  these  benefits,  and  the  one  we  have  just 
now  to  make  proof  of,  is  this,  that  the  Christianity 
of  the  British  people  stands  exempt  from  all  suspicion 
of  combination  among  its  adherents :  so  planted  are 
we  in  companies  on  the  flanks  of  Ebal  and  Gerizim, 
that  a  damage  to  the  one  cause  which  sincerely  we  all 
wish   to  uphold,  arising  from    our   dissensions,    is   an 


34  THE   RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

event  far  more  probable  than  the  bringing  in  of  any 
advantage,  from  our  concert,  and  collusion. 

As  to  the  Old  World,  and  forgetting  the  New, 
the  question  of  Christianity  is  almost  an  insular  ques- 
tion— it  is  a  British  interest.  How  far,  or  •whether 
in  any  perceptible  manner,  the  moral  or  political  con- 
dition of  any  one  of  the  Continental  states  would  show 
a  change,  it  is  not  easy  to  conjecture,  supposing  a 
silent  and  somewhat  gradual  dying  out  of  religious 
belief,  that  is  Christian  belief,  from  the  mind  of  the 
people,  and  from  the  lip  of  the  state.  But  there  can 
be  no  room  for  any  such  doubt  as  to  ourselves.  What 
those  various  consequences  to  ourselves  might  be,  re- 
sulting from  a  national  abandonment  of  our  present 
faith  in  the  Divine  origin  of  the  Bible,  and  of  our 
professed  submission  to  its  authority,  this  is  not  the 
place  to  enquire ;  yet  there  is  reason  to  think  that  such 
an  apostacy  would  mean — national  annihilation. 

Whether  it  might  be  so  or  not,  it  is  certain  that 
Christianity  has  always  shown  itself  to  be  migratory: 
it  abides  with  a  people  for  a  century,  or  for  a  thousand 
years,  but  it  does  not  chain  itself  to  a  soil,  as  with 
bands  of  brass. 

Hitherto  no  combinations  of  adverse  forces, — neither 
persecutions  from  without,  nor  perversions  from  within, 
— nor  deluges  of  barbarism,  have  availed  to  dislodge 
Christianity  from  the  world.  Yet  unobtrusive  causes 
have  often  driven  it  from  countries.  Fixing  the  eye 
upon  any  one  spot,  and  thence  to  watch  the  waxing 
and  waning  of  the  light  of  the  Gospel,  one  might 
think  it  a  terrestrial  phosphorescence,  rather  than  a 
Umnnary  of  heaven.      It  shines  upon  a  land  to-day; 


THE   RESTORATION    OF    EELIEF.  35 

to-morrow  these   beams    may  have  drawn  themselves 
up  to  their  source  ! 

This  readiness  to  depart — this  word  always  upon 
its  lip,  ^Lcea\iaivu>fi.tv  iv-tevdev,  which  scems  to  be  its  law, 
as  to  cities  and  countries — docs  it  not  repeat  itself  in 
individual  instances  every  day?  The  religious  his- 
tory (for  example)  of  the  once  Christian  cities  of  the 
East,  is  a  narrative,  at  large,  of  what  is  written, 
small,  in  the  personal  history  of  many  around  us — 
perhaps  in  our  own.  In  the  fresh  season  of  life 
Christianity  lodged  itself  firmly  in  a  man's  affections, 
and  in  his  reason  too  ;  so  far  as  the  reason  was  then 
developed.  Within  the  chamber  of  conscience  the 
ethics  of  the  Scriptures  was  always  listened  to  as  the 
ultimate  authority:  never  did  it  seem  doubtful  that 
this  rule  of  virtue,  listened  to  and  obeyed,  would  lead 
in  the  path  of  rectitude  and  of  purity,  and  would 
issue  in  the  highest  good.  But  the  realities  of  ma- 
ture life,  and  its  seduction,  came  upon  the  neophyte : 
they  came  with  their  struggles,  their  moral  ambiguities, 
their  over-wrought  requirements,  their  blandishments. 
A  hubbub  of  contending  impulses  came  to  fill  the 
chamber  wherein,  formerly,  Conscience  and  Christianity 
used  to  confer  in  so  consentient  a  tone  that  the  two 
voices  fell  upon  the  ear  as  one  sweet  sound. 

Thenceforward  Chi'istianity  betook  itself  to  a  lodge- 
ment remote  from  this  place  of  noise — the  mature 
man's  brain.  "When  so  lodged  at  a  distance,  it  came 
to  be  regarded  as  a  Personage  whose  merits  might 
be  weighed,  whose  claims  were  open  to  enquiry,  and 
who  might  be  brought  to  terms  along  with  other 
rival  authorities:    perhaps  its    demands  were  scouted 


36  THE   RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

as  excessive  and  impracticable.  Every  day  the  aerial 
perspective  intervening  between  this  departing  Power 
and  the  busy  man,  gave  him  more  and  more  advantage 
over  it,  as  an  Authority. 

Then  came  on  the  detractors  of  Christianity — a 
motley  crew :  these  detractors  were  sinister  in  look, 
and,  manifestly,  they  were  intent  upon  rending,  and 
tearing,  and  treading  in  the  mire,  whatever  might  be 
abandoned  to  their  will :  this  was  their  hour  ;  and  there 
came  up  with  them  one  in  the  garb  of  a  sage,  who,  in 
an  attempered  tone,  and  as  if  he  governed  a  secret  pur- 
pose, whispered  such  things  to  the  prejudice  of  the  Re- 
ligion of  the  man's  youth,  as  could  not  but  be  listened 
to :  he  said,  "  It  is  due  to  myself,  it  is  due  even  to 
Christianity,  if  I  am  again  to  admit  it  to  my  confidence, 
to  give  these  reasonable  allegations  a  patient  hearing ; 
I  Avill  do  so  when  leisure  permits."  Leisure  did  not 
come  to  this  man  at  his  call ;  but  it  came  in  its  own 
way ;  and  during  its  stay  the  question  of  Christianity 
was  considered  anew,  and  did  obtain  a  patient  hearing ; 
and  in  the  full  exercise  of  mature  reason,  aided  by  the 
experience  of  years,  it  did  make  good  its  hitherto  un- 
examined claims.  It  re-entered  the  chamber  of  con- 
science ;  it  rekindled  the  extinct  affections ;  it  became 
the  spring  of  energies,  and  the  fountain  of  hope. 

Such,  in  this  instance,  was  the  actual  issue :  but  how 
easily  might  it  have  been  otherwise  !  A  train  of  events, 
seemingly  casual,  taking  their  course  in  another  direc- 
tion, and  then  this  man  would  have  gone  on  to  the  end, 
as  his  companions  in  active  life  have  gone.  In  their 
company,  whatever  was  not  palpable,  was  as  a  dream, 
to  the  bodings  of  which  it  would  be  inane  to  pay  re- 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  37 

gard.  In  the  hurry  of  many  interests  Christianity, 
and  with  it  every  definite  forethought  of  a  future  life, 
may  pass  out  of  sight  and  be  lost  for  ever ;  just  as  a 
man  may  quit  his  hold  of  the  arm  of  a  friend  in  a 
Ci'owded  street,  and  see  him  thenceforward  no  more. 

What  may  happen  to  the  man,  and  does  happen  to 
thousands,  may  happen  to  communities — if  not  with  so 
little  observation,  or  within  the  brief  term  of  two  de- 
cades, yet  within  the  limits  of  the  years  that  measure 
out  a  generation.  Regular  habits,  a  discreet  silence, 
and  churchgoing,  will  carry  the  individual  man  ostensi- 
bly well  through  a  period  of  religious  syncope  ;  and  so 
its  ancient  institutions,  and  its  usages,  and  its  con- 
ventional proprieties,  may  avail  to  bear  a  people  on- 
ward some  way  beyond  the  point  at  which  their  religious 
professions  cease  to  be  genuine,  and  are  formal  simply. 
Yet  such  a  hollowness  as  this  can  have  only  a  limited 
time  allowed  it.  What  a  people  has  indeed  become, 
will  declare  itself  at  some  moment  when  an  unlooked- 
for  turn  in  its  affairs  gives  an  involuntary  utterance  to 
its  inner  thoughts. 

Immeasurably  far  from  any  such  hollow  condition  as 
this,  is  the  English  Christianity  of  this  present  time. 
If  certain  classes  are  less  loyal  in  their  religious 
attachments  than  lately  they  were,  other  classes  have 
become  more  so.  A  genuine  religious  feeling  is  deep- 
ening on  the  one  hand,  if  it  be  fading  away  on  the 
other.  Yet  it  is  certain  that,  during  the  last  few  years, 
a  progress  towards  Disbelief  has  become  a  marked 
feature  in  literature  and  society.  If  the  Press  did 
not  make  this  certain,  every  one  who  listens  to  the 
accidental  utterances  of  men's  feelings,  must  well  know 

4 


38  TUB   RESTORATION   OP   BELIEF. 

it  to  be  the  fact.  Such  a  tendency  is  a  gravitation,  the 
property  of  which  is  to  accelerate  itself  at  a  rapid  rate. 
The  English  people  are  not  disbelievers ;  but  they  may 
become  such  soon,  unless  a  better  direction  be  given  at 
once  to  the  mind  of  the  educated  classes. 

No  one  whose  habit  of  mind  it  is  to  pay  regard  to 
that  which  affects  the  community,  can  refrain  from  thus 
considering  the  Christian  question  in  its  bearing  upon 
our  national  welfare.  So  it  must  be,  if  one  cares  for 
England,  and  thinks  of  the  position  which  it  occupies 
among  the  nations,  as  the  only  free  and  religious 
country  of  the  Old  World ; — the  only  country  in  which 
a  renewed  profession  of  adherence  to  Christianity  could 
be  thought  to  have  much  argumentative  value. 

And  yet  although  at  starting  I  advert  to  facts  of  this 
general  sort,  half  political  as  they  are,  it  is  not  as 
related  to  national  interests,  nor  as  a  secular  question, 
that  we  are  now  to  enter  upon  a  subject  so  deep,  and 
which  touches  the  peace  and  the  hopes  of  each  one  of 
us.  But  do  not  be  alarmed  at  the  hearing  of  these 
customary  phrases.  I  am  not  intending  to  preach,  as 
if  to  frighten  you  into  Belief.  Several  reasons  would 
forbid  my  attempting  so  to  do ;  but  this  especially — 
that  I  have  to  ask  you  to  hold,  at  my  command,  your 
EEASOisr.  To  make  you  a  Ciiiiistian,  in  the  deep  sense 
of  the  term,  is  not  my  work ;  but  I  hope  to  shew  you 
that  you  ought  to  be  such  ;  and  with  this  end  in  view, 
I  shall  use  no  means  of  suasion  against  which  you  can 
rightfully  except. 

Besides,  I  shall  call  upon  you  to  judge  between  me 
and  those  overweening  writers  of  the  present  time,  who 
alloAV  themselves  great  license  in  speaking  of  Christians 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  89 

— I  mean,  of  men  equal  to  themselves  every  way — as 
besotted,  blinded  by  childish  prejudices,  wanting  in 
honesty  ;  or  if  not,  in  understanding ;  and  who  deal 
always  in  "miserable  shifts,"  " paltry  evasions,"  and 
"  unworthy  subterfuges."  I  think  I  see  at  the  impulse 
of  what  motives  these  unseemly  imputations  have  been 
so  plentifully  strewed  over  the  pages  of  some  recent 
books.  We  Christians  must  be  fools  or  knaves,  for  the 
ease  and  comfort  of  those  who  reject  Christianity.  Be 
it  so. 

Yet  I  will  say  this  to  yourself.  When  you  find  me 
faulty  in  any  such  manner,  when  you  see  that  I  am 
inwardly  trembling  in  the  consciousness  of  difficulties  I 
dare  not  name,  and  cannot  dispose  of,  when  you  find 
that  I  have  recourse  to  any  of  these  alleged  "  shifts," 
"  evasions,"  "  subterfuges,"  when  I  cease  to  satisfy 
you  as  thoroughly  ingenuous,  straightforward,  and  up- 
right in  argument,  then  lay  these  pages  aside. 


The  thirteen  years  during  which  Alexander  Se- 
VERUS  held  the  empire  of  the  world,  from  the  Euphrates 
to  the  Atlantic,  and  from  the  sands  of  the  African 
desert  to  the  Baltic,  afford  a  good  resting  place  where- 
upon we  may  establish  ourselves  at  ease,  and  look 
around  us.  On  this  platform  we  may  both  of  us  dis- 
miss all  alarms — you  as  a  philosopher,  and  I  as  a 
Christian  ;  for  the  young  man  in  whose  hand  is  our 
life  is  mild  in  temper ;  and  though  firm,  he  is  just  and 
reasonable.  lie  is  such,  on  the  Avhole,  as  one  should 
wish  the  master  of  mankind  to  be.  For  the  philoso- 
pher, he  cares  little ;  he  is  not  jealous  of  you,  like  a 
Domitian :  he  is  a  man  of  affairs,  although  also  a  man 
of  mind  ;  and  he  knows  that,  think  what  you  may,  you 
have  not  courage  either  to  act  or  to  suffer  so  as  to  give 
him  any  trouble.  Toward  me  he  has  some  uneasy 
thoughts  ;  nevertheless  he  will  not  be  induced,  even  by 
reasonable  apprehensions  of  danger  to  the  Roman 
State,  to  do  violence  to  the  spirit  of  Roman  law ;  al- 
though its  letter  might  warrant  his  taking  that  course : 
he  will  not  hurt,  much  less  attempt  to  exterminate,  good 
citizens  whose  only  fault  is  a  strange  pertinacity  in  the 
matter  of  their  superstition.  Alexander  Severus 
was  not  a  mindless  despot ;  therefore  the  philosopher 
is  safe  while  he  lives ;  and  as  he  was  not  a  Marcus 
AuRELius,  the  Christian  may  freely  breathe.  Resides, 
(40) 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  41 

this  Emperor — no  softling  himself — is  not  ashamed  to 
take  counsel  of  his  mother ;  and  she,  although  indis- 
creetly frugal,  is  a  wise  woman,  who,  having  trained  her 
son  for  empire,  took  care  to  screen  him  from  the  vices 
of  the  times,  and  to  hold  off  not  merely  the  corruption 
that  would  have  enfeebled  his  youth,  but  the  fanaticism 
that  might  have  inflamed  his  ripening  manhood.  It  is 
even  suspected  that  Mammoea,  either  in  Syria  or  at 
Rome,  had  come  to  know  so  much  of  the  now-spread- 
ing religion,  as  to  forbic'  her  allowing  it  to  be  cruelly 
trampled  on.  If  it  be  so,  she  is  not  the  first  imperial 
lady  who  has  gleaned  in  the  fields  of  the  Church  to  its 
advantage  and  her  own. 

We  take  our  stand  then  on  this  resting-place,  as  a 
place  of  observation,  whence  the  kingdoms  of  the  world 
and  the  glory  of  them  are  visible,  and  may  with  advan- 
tage be  contemplated.  Hence  we  may  look  up  the 
stream  of  time,  through  the  hundred  years  that  is  occu- 
pied by  CoMMODus,  M.  AuRELius,  Antoninus  Pius, 
and  Trajan. 

As  related  to  the  purpose  which  I  have  now  in  view, 

this  position  has  a  definite  advantage,  which  we  must  not 

lose  sight  of.     Outspread  before  us  is  a  wide  field — the 

world  in  fact,  so  far  as  history  knows  much  of  those 

times ;  and   as  to  the  evidence  thereto  relating,  it  is 

voluminous.    The  folios  and  the  quartos  of  that  period, 

and  those  which  serve  to  attest  its  principal  facts,  cover 

a  library-table.     It  cannot  therefore  be  pretended  that 

I  am  leading  the  way  into  a  dim  region — the  land  (in  a 

literary  sense)  of  the  shadow  of  death,  scarcely  shone 

upon  by  here  and  there  a  glimmering  lamp. 

In  the  mass  of  materials  under  our  hand,  some  things 

4* 


42  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

arc  ■wortlilcss,  much  is  not  availaldc  for  any  aro-nmcnta- 
tivc  purpose ;  some  portions  are  of  doubtful  autliority, 
some  tilings  arc  undoubtedly  spurious.  Yet  all  these 
deductions,  or  if  they  "Nverc  more  than  they  arc,  fall 
very  far  short  of  amounting  to  what  might  touch  any 
conclusion  I  am  intending  to  draw  from  my  evidence. 
I  am  driven  to  no  necessity  to  light  a  hard  battle  for  a 
single  treatise  or  book,  like  Boyle  against  Bentley ;  or 
to  number  and  weigh  ancient  manuscripts  in  support  of 
a  doubtful  reading.  Safe  from  all  reasonable  exception, 
arc  the  materials  on  my  table,  as  to  any  use  I  am  in- 
tending to  make  of  them. 

Besides  the  copiousness  of  these  materials,  there  is 
this  peculiar  circumstance  attaching  to  them,  taken  just 
at  the  moment  at  which  I  have  chosen  to  make  a  stand : 
it  is  this,  that  the  mass  combines  the  two  unamaljia- 
mated  and  adverse  elements,  on  the  one  side,  the  poly- 
theistic and  philosophic  ;  on  the  other  side  the  Christian. 
The  literature  of  the  gods,  and  of  the  philosophy  which 
threw  its  handful  of  incense  upon  their  altars  in  con- 
tempt, had  not  yet  died  away ;  nor  had  it  been  infringed 
upon,  or  curtailed,  or  put  in  fear :  its  own  decrepitude 
was   its  only  disparagement. 

Then,  on  the  Christian  side,  no  favour  which  it  had 
not  dearly  purchased,  or  did  not  well  deserve,  had  as 
yet  been  shown  the  new  religion :  it  was  not  yet  a  rcU- 
(jio  licita :  it  drew  its  breath  in  suspense  from  day  to 
day,  and  it  hung  upon  the  personal  dispositions  of  pro- 
consuls, or  the  temper  and  politics  of  the  Cresar  for  the 
time.  The  Christian  literature  of  the  era  before  us  al- 
ternately fires  up  with  the  courage  of  conscious  truth,  or 
flickers  as  in  the  gust  of  adversity. 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  43 

But  now  what  was  this  Roman  worhl,  in  the  forefront 
of  which  I  am  intending  to  bring  in,  artist-like,  and 
with  every  possible  advantage,  the  CniiiSTiANiXY  I  am 
pleading  for  ? 

It  is  natural  that  you  should  imagine  me  setting  to 
work  with  an  ample  canvass  before  me,  and  mixing  the 
colors  most  proper  for  my  background,  with  a  knowing 
thought  of  the  effect  that  is  to  be  produced  by  the  pic- 
ture. Shall  I  not  have  in  readiness  the  lurid  reds,  the 
cloudy  purples,  with  store  of  the  deepest  blacks  ?  shall 
I  not  spread  a  Rembrandt  palette  for  the  depths  of  that 
canvass,  the  centre  of  which  is  destined  for  saints,  for 
confessors,  and  for  a  choir  of  cherubs  ? 

I  am  going  to  work  in  no  such  manner.  It  is  not 
merely  for  the  sake  of  having  at  my  command  abun- 
dance of  evidence,  that  I  take  my  position  at  the  point 
of  time  I  have  named;  but  because  I  wish  to  have  to 
do  with  nothing  that  is  not  unquestionably  real.  On 
my  own  side  I  expect  to  find  none  but  real  men ; 
many  of  them  good  and  true,  whose  motives  and  prin- 
ciples of  conduct  I  can  understand,  whose  failings  need 
not  be  cloaked,  whose  errors  give  me  no  alarm  ;  whose 
follies,  if  any,  do  not  put  my  argument  in  peril ;  whose 
wisdom  and  virtue  I  shall  know  how  to  interpret,  and 
assign  to  its  source.  I  am  not  in  quest  either  of  super- 
human men,  or  of  angels,  walking  the  earth.  I  know 
I  shall  find  a  superhuman  religion — I  know  I  shall  come 
upon  the  footsteps  of  God. 

On  the  other  side,  there  can  be  no  motive  inclining 
me  to  blacken  heathenism  for  the  sake  of  a  contrast. 
On  the  contrary,  I  had  much  rather  show  Christianity 
shining   bright  upon  a   moderately   illumined   surface, 


44  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

than  made  to  appear  artificially  resplendent  by  setting 
it  upon  a  ground  of  tlie  deepest  shades. 

We  are  sometimes  told — "  If  you  Avould  know  what 
heathenism  is,  and  understand  what  it  was  which  the 
Gospel  had  to  contend  with,  and  which  it  vanquished, 
go  to  India,  and  there  look  about  you; — heathenism  ia 
the  Devil's  religion,  and  therefore  always  the  same, 
though  it  may  show  a  different  face  in  different  coun- 
tries." No,  I  think  not.  Whatever  polytheism  may 
be,  as  to  its  inner  nature,  as  the  Devil's  religion — and 
I  think  it  is  so — yet  among  one  family  of  man  it  may 
coexist  with  influences,  alien  to  itself,  which  may  so 
attemper  it,  so  amend  and  correct  it,  so  forbid  its  worst 
enormities,  as  that,  when  compared  with  its  unmixed 
condition,  as  developed  among  other  families,  the 
resemblance  of  the  two  is  partial  only;  and  we  shall 
find  ourselves  torn  with  thorns  if  we  rush  forward  into 
argument,  assuming  that  the  gods  are  the  gods,  meet 
them  where  we  may. 

Christianity,  while  as  yet  it  was  in  its  purity,  made 
inroads  upon  the  grounds  of  Buddhism  and  Brahminism ; 
but  it  failed  to  overturn  either ;  it  did  not  even  exten- 
sivelv  colonize  India ;  it  did  but  breathe  there.  Tliose 
"  idolatries "  presented  to  it  no  attempered  elements, 
whence  its  assault  upon  human  nature  might  draw  an 
initial  advantage. 

As  a  Christian,  had  one  not  rather  find  it  to  be  a 
fact  that  the  Gospel  sickened  and  died  upon  the  pesti- 
lential swamps  of  India — those  plains  sodden  with 
human  blood,  and  abominable  even  still  more  for  the 
practices  of  the  living ;  while  it  lived  and  spread  in  the 
soil  which  Greek  poetry  had  planted  out  as  a  garden, 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  45 

upon  "which  Plato  had  built  his  palaces  of  thought,  and 
Aristotle  his  logical  fortresses  ?  The  Polytheism,  or 
call  it  the  "  heathenism,"  which  the  Gospel  did  sup- 
plant, was  that  religion,  under  the  shade  of  which  Epic- 
tetus  had  fashioned  his  scheme  of  virtue ;  it  Avas  the 
religion  under  which  Plutarch  and  Seneca  had  din^ested 
so  well  the  past,  and  had  mused  of  better  things  to 
come ;  it  was  the  religion  in  conforming  to  which  Ro- 
man emperors,  unresisted  despots  as  they  were,  had 
ruled  the  world  Avith  justice,  mercy,  and  truth,  and  had 
learned  to  govern,  more  than  the  Imperium  Romanum, 
their  own  passions.  Yet  for  this  paganism  Christianity 
proved  itself  an  overmatch :  but  I  must  not  outrun  my 
argument. 

From  the  platform  whereon  we  stand  one  might  be 
tempted  to  look  around  upon  the  gorgeous  spectacle 
that  presents  itself  on  every  side.  We  are  used  to  think 
of  the  times  of  Hadrian  and  Alexander  Severus,  as 
degenerate ;  because  they  stand,  toward  us  of  modern 
times,  in  optical  conjunction  with  the  Augustine  age : 
and  again  we  see  them  laden  with  the  ruin  and  disaster, 
the  decay  and  the  barbarism,  of  an  after  time,  the 
blame  of  which  we  throw  upon  the  men  of  this  middle 
period. 

Putting  away  these  illusions  of  position — these  errors 
in  perspective — the  prospect  before  us  is  such  as  at  no 
other  point  of  time,  either  much  earlier  or  much  later, 
this  earth  of  ours  has  presented.  The  Roman  land- 
scape, contemplated  at  any  moment  during  the  reigns 
of  the  benignant  emperors,  beginning  with  Trajan,  has 
not  had  its  parallel — if  the  West  and  the  East  are 
thought   of  together — in    any  other  period     Certainly 


^1-6  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

the  same  ai'ea  of  three  thousand  miles  by  two  thousand, 
noiv  shows  a  falling  off  in  almost  every  item  of  estima- 
tion— population,  material  wealth,  breadth  of  fully  cul- 
tivated surface,  the  number  and  splendour  of  cities,  and 
the  magnitude  and  utility  of  those  public  works,  which 
at  once  were  the  praise  of  the  central  government,  and 
the  means  of  sustaining  its  power. 

The  East,  and  the  West,  and  Africa,  taken  into 
the  reckoning  togethej',  the  world  that  now  is,  the  great 
field  over  which  our  summer  tourists  are  wandering, 
does  not  seem  to  have  gained  much  upon  the  world,  such 
as  it  was  in  the  age  of  the  Antonines.  What  is  cer- 
tain is  this — That,  in  relation  to  the  mighty  revolution 
which  in  that  age  was  advancing  towards  its  crisis,  the 
human  family  (so  far  as  it  is  authentically  reported  of 
it  by  continuous  and  intelligible  history)  had  never  be- 
fore, and  has  never  since,  so  presented  itself  to  a  plastic 
hand  to  be  moulded  anew,  as  then  it  did.  That  was  the 
epoch  which  might  most  fairly  have  been  fixed  upon,  as 
proper  for  making  a  new  experiment  upon  humanity, 
which  should  be  decisive  upon  its  issue. 

The  full-developed  and  educated  mind  of  the  human 
family  was  then  to  be  found  clustering,  at  bright 
centres,  and  thence  diffused  over  surfaces,  between  and 
within  the  boundaries  of  the  Roman  Empire.  Among 
the  cultured  nations  of  this  area,  and  no  where  else, 
THOUGHT  took  r  its  Way  ward  flight;  and  on  no  side  did 
it  come  up  to  adamantine  barriers ;  its  own  power  of 
wing  being  its  only  limit.  Into  all  regions  of  specula- 
tion a  way  had  been  freely  opened.  The  Roman  roads, 
centering  at  Rome,  and  running  out,  as  if  contemptuous 
of  the  rugged  surface,  right  away  into  and  through  the 


THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  47 

gloom  of  primreval  forests,  did  but  symbolize  tliose 
beaten  ways  which  Philosophy  had  opened  for  herself 
and  for  her  sons,  outward,  from  the  home  amenities  of 
Poetry  and  Rhetoric,  toward  the  dark  unknown  of 
abstruse  speculation. 

The  human  mind  in  that  age  had  indeed  ceased  to  be 
creative  :  the  men  of  earlier  times  had  wrought  up  the 
material  of  the  fine  arts  and  of  poetry,  and  had  occu- 
pied the  ground  on  every  side.  The  nations,  using  the 
language  of  Greece  and  Rome,  were  living  deliciously 
upon  the  intellectual  products  of  an  age  of  more  en- 
ergy. The  human  mind  did  not  any  longer  seem 
luminous,  as. if  from  within;  but  yet  its  lamp  was  fed 
from  a  store  of  oil  which  apparently  was  inexhaustible. 

At  no  one  time  in  the  world's  history  has  erudite  intelli- 
gence been  spread  over  so  large  a  surface,  geographically, 
or  had  come,  as  one  body  of  philosophy  and  literature, 
into  the  keeping  of  so  large  a  number  of  persons,  as  at 
the  time  whereat  we  have  now  made  a  pause.  Take  an 
earlier  age,  and  then  the  West  was  redeemed  from 
barbarism  only  at  points  :  or  take  a  much  later  time,  and 
the  clouds  of  a  sky,  overcast  for  a  thousand  years,  were 
gathering  over  the  West  and  the  East  :  or,  if  we  come 
down  to  more  modern  times,  the  vast  regions  of  the 
East,  with  Africa  and  Egypt,  are  a  howling  wilderness, 
and  the  habitation  of  dragons. 

Whence  then  shall  we  furnish  ourselves  with  the  dark 
colours,  by  aid  of  which  we  are  to  recommend  the 
brightness  of  the  Gospel,  then  making  its  way  towards 
supremacy  ? 

This  darkness  which  is  to  give  us  our  intended  con- 
trast, does  not  spring  from  barbarism,  or  from  ignorance, 


48  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

or  from  intellectual  slumber,  but  from  universal  in- 
certitude, -vvhich  -was  the  characteristic  of  the  times  : 
it  is  the  gloom  of  that  moral  dismay  which  comes  upon 
cultured  minds,  when  they  abandon  in  despair  the  long 
cherished  hope  of  seizing  upon  truth  and  certainty — of 
knowing  something  beside  the  theorems  of  Euclid — of 
grasping  in  the  hand  a  stay  immovable.  The  soul  reels 
and  sickens  Avhen  it  turns  hither  and  thither,  vainly 
endeavouring  to  learn  out  of  what  chaos  man  had  sprung, 
and  into  what  abyss  his  destinies  would  plunge  him. 

To  disguise  this  despair,  or  to  divert  it,  the  levities 
of  literature,  and  the  endless  inanities  of  criticism  had 
been  resorted  to.  For  choking  it.  Stoicism  was  the 
means  employed.  Yet,  and  notwithstanding  the  efforts 
of  elaborate  frivolity  on  the  one  part,  and  of  a  death- 
like doctrine  on  the  other,  the  comfortless  dismay  of  the 
human  mind,  hopeless  of  Truth,  uttered  itself  in  a  moan, 
a  low  wailing,  of  which  we  may  catch  the  echoes  at  what- 
ever point  we  listen  to  the  voice  of  that  age. 

Let  any  one  whose  course  has  not  been  altogether 
sensual,  or  merely  busy,  but  who  has  known  what  are 
called  "exercises  of  mind,"  go  back  to  those  moments 
of  his  life  when  convictions,  beliefs,  persuasions  of  every 
kind,  were  passing  from  his  view,  and  when  nothing 
remained  to  him  but  a  dread  uncertainty,  and  the  feel- 
ing that  never  again  should  he  grasp  a  truth.  In  the 
recollection  of  such  a  season  one  would  not  reject  the 
figure  as  inappropriate,  if  it  were  called  the  night-time 
of  the  soul ;  and  not  less  so,  although  all  the  splendours 
of  literature  and  science  were  then  glittering  around 
him.     It  must  be  so  :  for  the  first  necessity  of  man's 


TnE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  49 

higher  nature  is  truth,  and  the  despair  of  finding  it  is 
indeed — a  darkness  that  may  be  felt. 

In  this  very  sense  of  the  word,  a  thick  darkness  rested 
upon  the  cultured  members  of  the  human  family  (of  the 
Koman  empire)  at  the  time  which  we  have  chosen  for 
our  survey.  From  the  time  when  the  genius  of  the 
Greek  and  Roman  literature  had  departed,  that  darkness 
had  sensibly  gathered  blackness  ;  for  in  fact,  as  it  is 
the  very  property  of  Genius,  and  its  first  characteristic, 
to  speak  and  behave  itself  as  being  in  the  conscious 
possession  of  whatever  it  touches,  and  as  it  is  its  pre- 
rogative to  give  illusions  the  aspect  of  reality,  therefore, 
so  long  as  this  spontaneous  power  lives  among  a  people 
they  may  believe  that  Truth  is  still  extant,  somewhere, 
because  its  tones  are  still  heard. 

In  this  definitely  explained  sense  of  the  term,  then,  I 
am  warranted  in  affirming  that,  thinking  of  the  polythe- 
istic and  philosophic  majority  of  the  people,  throughout 
the  circuit  of  Roman  civilization,  a  deep  gloom  at  this 
time  covered  the  nations,  and  that  the  people  sat  as  "  in 
the  shadow  of  Death."  It  would  be  easy  to  make  good 
other  allegations,  tending  to  show  that  this  gloom  was 
darkened  by  the  evergrowing  corruption  of  morals,  by 
the  utter  decay  of  public  spirit,  by  the  dissoluteness 
which  despotism  encourages,  and  by  that  deprivation 
of  the  humane  emotions  which  came  from  the  frequency 
and  the  sanguinary  atrocity  of  the  exhibitions  of  the 
amphitheatre.  But  from  all  this  we  may  abstain ;  for  it 
does  not  materially  affect  the  argument. 

Grant  me  this,  that,  as  to  the  Life  of  the  Soul,  as  to 
that  brightness  of  assured  belief  toward  which  human 
nature  tends  with  so  strong  an  instinct  and  so  earnest  a 

5 


50  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

craving,  it  was  a  season  of  dimness,  and  of  more  than 
dimness ;  it  was  the  most  gloomy  season  in  the  history 
of  mankind,  for  all  shadows  were  then  lengthening  and 
spreading  ;  and  a  chill  was  in  the  atmosphere,  forebod- 
ing a  wintry  night  at  hand. 

Throughout  all  the  countries  whereupon  the  once  fes- 
tive polytheism  of  Greece  had  built  its  altars,  mockery 
had  supplanted  religious  awe,  a  factitious  fanaticism 
had  come  in  the  place,  both  of  gay  observances  and  of 
serious  feeling.  Philosophy  had  uttered  her  last  pro- 
mises, and  broken  them.  On  no  side  did  light  break 
forth. 

From  a  worldly  point  of  view  we  have  just  now  looked 
abroad  upon  the  kingdoms  of  the  Roman  earth,  and 
imagined  their  glory.  But  now,  shutting  out  that  mun- 
dane glare,  what  we  see  is  a  thick  cloud,  overshadowing 
the  prospect,  even  from  the  rising  of  the  sun  to  the 
going  down  of  the  same. 

Yet  all  is  not  dark.  If  we  pass  down  the  Mediterra- 
nean, from  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  and  look  to  the 
right  and  to  the  left,  and  carry  the  eye  inland  too,  as 
far  as  to  the  furthest  barriers  of  the  Empire,  the 
whole  of  the  coast-line  on  both  sides  throughout  this 
voyage,  and  every  headland,  and  every  mountain  range 
more  remote,  and  every  temple-crowned  acropolis,  and 
every  lofty  front  glows  as  if  the  sun  were  rising.  A 
Light  has  already  arisen  upon  the  nations ;  a  promise 
of  Truth,  and  an  assurance  as  to  the  destiny  of  man, 
has  brightened  the  gloom. 

Every  where — the  exceptions  are  few — throughout 
the  regions  which  the  Mediterranean  divides,  in  cities 
and  in  field?,  we  meet  companies  of  men,  even  multi- 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  61 

tudcs,  who  have  thrown  off  the  listlessness  of  scepticism, 
fi-om  whose  countenance  the  sullenness  of  atheism  has 
been  dispelled,  and  who  speak  to  us  in  the  decisive 
tones  that  spring  from  an  accepted  and  undoubted  be- 
lief. These  men  show,  in  their  animated  looks,  and 
by  the  determination  of  their  behaviour,  that  there  is  in 
them  the  vitality  of  a  Religious  persuasion  which  they 
do  not  distrust. 

How  cordially  to  be  welcomed  is  such  a  visitation,  as 
of  the  morning — if  it  be  the  morning  ?  How  good  a 
promise  was  it  for  mankind  of  an  escape  from  the  gulph 
toward  which  the  human  family  was  slowly  and  surely 
drifting  away !  A  sure  holding  has  at  length  been 
found.  Some,  nay  thousands  of  the  people,  declare  that 
their  feet  do  touch  firm  ground  in  the  waters  of  reli- 
gious opinion,  and  that  they  stand  where  good  standing 
is.  Instead  of  those  inarticulate  babblings,  as  from  the 
frivolous  miUion,  and  instead  of  those  doleful  murmurs 
of  the  desponding,  the  ear  now  catches  the  intelligible 
utterance  of  men  who  say  they  have  come  into  the  pos- 
session of  CERTAINTY,  and  of  hope. 

Whether  the  ground  of  this  confident  assurance  were 
of  that  kind  which  we  in  this  age  should  think  solid  and 
sufficient,  does  not  yet  appear.  It  is  probable  that 
many,  or  even  a  large  portion  of  those  in  that  age  who 
make  this  profession,  could  have  given  no  such  reason 
for  "the  hope  that  was  in  them,"  as  would  have  com- 
pelled the  assent  of  the  men  of  these  times,  or  such  as 
could  have  endured  a  ten  minutes'  cross-examination  in 
the  modern  forensic  style. 

This  does  not  at  all  concern  us  now  to  inquire.  The 
FACT  is  all  we  have  to  do  with,  which  fact,  briefly  stated, 


52  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

is  this — That  at  the  time  now  in  prospect,  multitudes 
of  men,  of  all  the  races  that  were  then  subject  to  the 
Roman  swaj  (and  of  some  other  races  probably)  had 
passed  from  a  condition  of  frivolous  indifference,  or  of 
sensual  obtuseness,  or  of  sullen  hopelessness,  and  had 
come,  rightfully  or  not,  into  the  possession  of  a  bright 
and  well-defined  belief. 

If  we  were  to  set  forth  this  belief  in  the  most  concise 
terms  possible,  it  would  stand  in  the  form  of  an  affirma- 
tive reply  to  three  questions,  which  questions  are  as  old 
as  the  world,  and  to  which  men,  from  the  very  begin- 
ning, have  been  seeking,  but  not  finding,  an  answer. 

"Is  there  a  Supreme  Being  who  cares  for  man,  and 
in  whose  wisdom  and  goodness  man  may  confide?" 
"Is  there  an  after  life  and  retribution  ?" 
"  Is  there  forgiveness  of  sins  with  God  ?" 
It  is  not  that  no  solutions,  more  or  less  intelligible, 
had  been  attempted  and  obtained  of  these  vital  prob- 
lems ;  for  the  moral  instincts  of  men  had,  in  some  way, 
solved  them.     Every  form  of  worship  had  assumed  a 
reply  to    them    in    the    affirmative;  and   philosophical 
meditation  had  done  its  part — ambiguously  enough — to 
answer  them.     Yet,  all  this  while  the  reply,  let  it  come 
whence  it  might,  carried  no  peremptory  conviction  into 
the  hearts  of  those  who  heard  it.      It  came  with  no 
weight  of  authority ;  it  came  as  a  balanced  probability 
— it  had  no  attestation.     But  now  at  length  it  has  so 
come.     The  reply — the  "yea"  which  Christianity  has 
uttered,  takes  a  thorough  hold  of  men's  inmost  souls,  as 
well  as  of  their  reason.     Whether  or  not  this  confidence 
of  theirs  was  strictly  warrantable,  according  to  our  no- 
tions of  the  laws  of  evidence,  the  fact  that  they  did  so 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  53 

believe  is  beyond  all  question ;  and  of  the  strength  of 
this  their  persuasion  proofs  were  given,  than  "which  any 
more  conclusive  cannot  be  imagined. 

This  then  is  the  point  we  have  reached — That,  in 
the  century  which  is  named  from  Trajan,  Hadrian,  and 
the  Antonines,  the  instructed  races  bordering  upon  the 
Mediterranean  were  in  a  transition  state,  and  were 
passing  from  darkness  to  light ;  that  is,  the  Light  of  a 
confidently  held  religious  Belief,  true  or  false. 


e* 


In  what  next  follows,  I  shall  imagine  that  all  we  can 
now  know  about  Christianity,  as  to  its  oi'igin  and  its 
earlier  period,  must  be  gathered  from  the  literary  re- 
mains of  the  age  we  have  before  us.  Every  thing, 
every  book,  treatise,  memoir,  fragment,  that  might 
have  come  down  to  us  from  a  date  anterior  to  the  acces- 
sion of  Trajan,  I  will  suppose  has  perished.  And  even 
as  to  the  books  extant,  I  draw  my  pen  through  all  the 
citations  of  the  Christian  writers  of  a  preceding  age 
that  appear  in  them. 

Besides  doing  this,  I  dismiss  from  my  recollection 
whatever  I  may  have  come  to  know  of  the  after  his- 
tory of  Christianity,  or  of  the  literature  of  times  sub- 
sequent. What  we  have  to  do  with  at  present,  is  found 
between  two  chronological  termini — the  accession  of 
Trajan,  and  the  death  of  Alexander  Severus. 

Then,  as  to  the  materials  belonging  to  this  so 
bounded  period,  various  as  they  are,  I  handle  them 
with  entire  freedom.  As  already  said,  I  have  no 
nervous  anxiety  about  disputed  passages,  interpolations, 
or  books  of  doubtful  authorship.  This  only  should  be 
said,  that,  as  I  undertake  to  do  nothing  for  persons 
pre-resolved  to  believe  nothing,  and  determined  to  stick 
to  every  imaginable  paradox  that  may  help  them  to 
effect  their  escape  from  Christianity,  I  am  supposing 
so  much  acquioscenco  a.s  to  the  reality  of  the  materials 
ifyi) 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  55 

before  us,  as  the  best  informed   men,   warped  by  no 
prejudice,  will  always  grant.  • 

The  countries,  provinces,  and  cities  of  the  Roman 
empire,  within  which  Christianity  had  established  itself 
about  the  middle  period  of  the  second  century,  are 
easily  named,  and  may  be  certainly  linown.  But  to 
what  extent,  as  to  the  population,  in  each  province  or 
city,  conversion  from  heathenism  had  taken  place,  must 
be  matter  of  surmise  ;  or  at  best  of  probable  inference. 
We  should  incline  to  hold  back  from  the  highest  esti- 
mate of  this  proportion ;  and  therefore  must  listen 
with  caution  to  the  bold  assertions  of  those  Christian 
apologists,  in  following  whom  we  might  be  led  to  believe 
that  times  of  severe  suflFering  allowed  for,  a  majority 
of  the  people  of  all  the  principal  cities  of  the  empire 
had  become  Christians,  and  that  the  country  folk  were 
forsaking  their  paganism  in  large  numbers.  Pliny's 
report,  made  to  his  master  at  the  commencement  of 
our  period,  does  indeed  carry  the  same  meaning,  and 
we  mio-ht  infer  as  much  from  other  testimonies.  But 
the  statistics  of  this  subject  touches  no  point  of  our 
argument. 

Gibbon  supposes  that  not  more  than  a  twentieth 
part  of  the  entire  population  of  the  empire,  "at  the 
most,  was  professedly  Christian  at  the  moment  pre- 
ceding the  edict  of  Milan.  This  population,  taken 
midway  in  the  second  century,  he  estimates  at  one 
hundred  and  twenty  millions.  We  may  believe  that 
in  the  interval  of  a  century  and  a  half,  the  Christian 
proportion  had  gone  on  increasing,  so  that  in  the  time 
of  Antoninus  Pius  we  should  not  be  warranted  in 
computing  them   at  more  than  a  thirtieth  or  perhaps 


56  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

a  fortieth  part  of  the  whole,  if  we  except  Gibbon's 

rule. 

Yet  so  low  an  estimate  as  this  it  is  not  easy  to 
reconcile  with  the  averments  of  Tertullian,  loudly 
uttered,  and  addressed  to  the  hostile  Roman  authori- 
ties, able  and  willing  enough  to  give  them  a  flat  contra- 
diction, if  they  had  been  glaringly  false.— We  are 
but  of  yesterday,  and  we  have  filled  every  thing  that 
is  yours,  cities,  islands,  castles,  free  towns,  council 
halls,  the  very  camps,  all  classes  of  men,  the  palace, 
the  senate,  the  forum.  We  have  left  you  nothing  but 
your  temples.  We  can  number  (outnumber)  your 
armies :  there  are  more  Christians  in  a  single  province 
(than  in  your  legions !)  At  the  time  we  are  speaking 
of,  it  is  probable  that  the  Roman  world  included  from 
three  to  five  millions  of  Christian  people. 

These,  as  I  have  said,  were  spread  over  an  area 
three  thousand  miles  in  length,  from  east  to  west, 
and  two  thousand  in  breadth,  from  north  to  south.  I 
take  no  account  here  of  the  ultra-Euphratean  Christi- 
anity, which  however  branched  off  on  the  right-hand 
into  southern  India,  and  on  the  left  into  Parthia,  and 
went  even  so  far  as  China.  Media,  Persia,  Bactria, 
Arabia,  had  also  listened  to  the  Gospel. 

The  machinery  of  a  government  so  complete  and 
efficient  as  that  of  the  Roman  empire,  and  the  univer- 
sality of  two  languages,  especially  the  wide  diffu- 
sion of  the  better  of  the  two,  and  the  energies  of 
commercial  enterprise,  and  the  purer  commerce  of 
mind — the  interchange  of  philosophy,  literature,  and 
art — all  these  influences  combined,  brought  the  nations 
then  subject  to  Rome  into  a  condition  of  relationship 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  57 

and  communion,  ■which  perhaps,  the  boasted  fiicilities 
of  modern  times  do  not  much,  if  at  all  surpass.  As 
to  the  actual  velocity  of  travel,  days  now  stand  for 
the  weeks  of  an  ancient  voyage  or  journey ;  or  even 
for  months ;  but  as  to  the  actual  intercommunion  of 
nations,  the  East,  and  the  West,  and  Africa,  it  may  be 
questioned  whether  it  be  greater  now  than  it  was  in 
the  age  of  Hadrian. 

The  spread  of  the  Gospel  was  favoured  by  all  these 
means  of  intercourse  ;  and  it  took  to  itself  the  wings 
of  every  energy  which  then  carried  men  to  ar.d  fro  be- 
tween the  three  continents.  It  used  the  roads  and  the 
ships  of  the  empire  ;  it  went  in  the  track  of  caravans. 
It  flowed,  as  one  might  say,  through  the  arteries  of 
the  Greek  language,  philosophy,  and  literature ;  it 
went  wherever  books  had  gone  before  it ;  culture  was 
a  preparation  of  the  soil  for  its  reception.  Forests 
and  wilds  it  did  penetrate  by  adventurous  and  pre- 
carious missions  ;  but,  along  with  the  refinements  of  a 
high  civilization,  to  dwell  as  at  home. 

In  each  of  the  great  cities  of  the  empire,  Antioch, 
Alexandria^  Rome,  and  in  every  second,  third,  and 
fourth-rate  city,  Christianity  claimed  an  appreciable 
proportion  of  the  citizens  as  its  own  ;  in  some  it  had 
the  majority.  From  each  of  these  centres  it  spread 
itself  over  the  surface;  at  some  points  imperfectly  co- 
lonizing only,  in  other  directions  suffusing  itself  with- 
out limit.  Thus  did  it  lodge,  or  thus  dwell,  in  Spain 
and  Gaul,  even  to  the  shores  of  the  Northern  Ocean. 
Britain,  a  favored  asylum  of  Roman  leisure  and  re- 
fined rural  enjoyment,  had  welcomed  the  Gospel  from 
the   first.     Italy,    Illyricum,   Macedonia,   Thrace,   and 


58  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

Greece,  it  had  pervaded,  and  the  provinces  of  Asia 
Minor  still  more  fully ;  and  in  some  of  its  provinces 
and  cities  the  mass  of  the  people  were  professedly 
Christian.  Throughout  Armenia,  Mesopotamia,  and 
Syria,  churches  well  organized  had  meted  out  the 
geographical  surface,  more  or  less  comiDletely. 

In  turning  the  face  again  westward,  the  same 
divided  state  of  the  population  meets  us ;  at  some 
points  the  Christian  and  the  Polytheistic  elements 
were  nearly  balanced.  Egypt,  Lower  and  Upper,  was 
to  a  great  extent  Christian.  Cyrene,  Carthage,  the 
whole  of  Proconsular  Africa,  Numidia,  and  Mauritania, 
had  also  thus  become  obnoxious  to  the  Roman  state  : 
for  as  to  these  regions,  it  was  asserted  that  the  new 
religion  was  rapidly  spreading  in  town  and  country, 
among  all  ranks,  not  even  excepting  the  highest. 

Geographically,  or  as  to  square  miles,  numbered 
on  the  surface  of  the  globe,  the  religion  of  Christ  had 
pervaded  the  entire  area  which  is  distinctly  known 
to  history  at  the  time  now  before  us.  Statistically 
it  was  fast  tending  toward  such  a  proportion  as  to 
render  its  further  increase  a  subject  of  well-founded 
disquietude  to  the  State.  As  to  classes,  it  had  emerged 
from  the  servile  class  :  it  had  spread  among  the  free 
and  the  privileged;  it  had  taken  its  position  in  the 
legions,  and  had  seated  itself  in  places  of  honour  and 
profit.  As  to  mind  and  learning,  it  had  engaged  the 
zealous  aid  of  the  best  instructed  and  the  most  elo- 
quent men  of  the  times.  The  heathen  writers,  their 
contemporaries,  can  claim  no  superiority  over  them. 
The  facts  thus  briefly  alluded  to  may,  as  every  one 


THE    KESTOKATION    OF    BELIEF.  59 


/f'l'f'-  /''^Vt^../ 


knows,  be  easily  substantiated  by  e+trrcfis,  Greek, and 
Latin,  that  would  fill  many  pages. 

But  for  what  purpose  do  I  now,  and  in  this  cursory 
manner,  bring  forward  what  is  so  well  known  ?  Not 
to  repeat,  for  the  hundredth  time,  what  has  been 
affirmed  warrantably,  and  pointedly,  often  already : 
That  the  spread  of  Christianity — all  the  conditions 
attending  it  considered,  the  place,  and  the  feebleness 
of  its  origin,  the  severity  of  its  moral  code,  its  un- 
bendingness,  and  the  furious  hostility  it  encountered; 
this  spread,  thus  early,  is  proof  of  its  reality — of  its 
truth.  So  it  is:  but  I  have  a  more  specific  purpose 
in  view. 


Very  often  of  late  we  have  been  told,  that  the 
human  mind  has  now  at  length  reached  so  mature  a 
condition  as  fits  it  for  the  task  of  working  out  for 
itself  the  elements  of  morality,  and  the  principles  of 
Religion  too — so  far  as  Religion  may  still  seem  to 
be  serviceable  or  necessary.  This,  it  is  said,  we  may 
all  do  for  ourselves,  without  the  aid  of  a  Book.  "What 
need  is  there  noto  for  sending  us  to  gather  lessons 
from  a  Book,  all  which  lessons  we  may  find  written 
in  our  hearts,  more  legibly,  and  with  fewer  admixtures 
of  what  is  obsolete,  mystical,  or  fabulous  ? 

By  those  who  thus  speak  it  is  granted  that  Chris- 
tianity did,  in  its  day,  effect  a  good  service  for  the 
nations  of  the  West,  in  ridding  them  of  the  old  poly- 
theism, and  in  giving  forth  a  single  expression  of  the 
truths  on  which  ReHgion  and  Worship  should  rest. 
But  having  long  ago  performed  this  service,  we  need 
its  aid  no  more ;  it  can  have  nothing  further  to  teach 
us. 

AVithout  pushing  the  inquiry,  how  far  these  spon- 
taneous elements  of  morality  have,  in  fact,  been 
borrowed  from  the  Book,  or  how  far  the  hold  they 
have  of  us,  as  an  autliority,  is  derived  from  a  vague 
unacknowledged  reference  to  the  sanctions  upon  which 
that  Book  insists,  I  am  willing  to  accept  this  home- 
grown morality,  with  all  the  sentiments  it  recognizes, 
(GO) 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  61 

come  whence  it  may,  and  shall  make  an  appeal  to  it, 
and  to  those  sentiments,  in  a  confident  and  urgent 
manner.  Do  not  draw  back  from  this  appeal,  and 
you  are  mine — you  yield  yourself  to  Christianity ! 

No  movement  forward  among  civilized  communities 
has  ever  come  so  insensibly,  or  as  if  it  merely  grew 
out  of  abstract  principles.  In  each  instance  it  has  been 
the  consequence  of  a  visible  and  obtrusive  course  of 
events ;  it  has  been  the  result  of  a  crisis,  brought  on 
by  some  violent  shifting  of  the  social  forces ;  and  it 
has  gone  forward  through  seasons  of  suffering,  and 
by  means  of  struggles,  and  at  the  cost  of  life. 

When  the  crisis  has  been  passed,  it  will  not  suffice 
to  sum  up  the  result  in  a  rounded  paragraph  of  gene- 
ralities, and  thus  to  run  off  with  the  benefit,  forgetful 
of  the  conditions  under  which  it  has  been  obtained 
for  us.  Nor  M'ill  it  be  enough,  merely  to  assign  the 
praise  which  may  be  due  to  those  by  whose  labours 
and  sufferings  a  great  achievement  has  been  brought 
to  its  issue. 

Take  the  case  before  us,  and  to  which  I  am  about 
to  invite  your  exact  attention.  It  is  granted  that 
Christianity  did  a  service  to  mankind,  in  its  time, 
by  overthrowing  the  frivolous  and  absurd  mythology 
and  worship  which  the  Roman  world  upheld,  and  to 
which  it  so  resolutely  clung.  Through  centuries 
longer  these  fables  and  superstitions  might  have 
retained  their  place.  Thanks  to  the  Martyrs,  the  whole 
congeries  of  fables  was  swept  away ;  a  great  clearance 
of  the  ground  was  made,  and  whatever  might  have 
been    the    supervening    errors,  that    ground    has    been 

6 


62  THE    llESTOKATION    OF    BELfEF. 

held  open  for  all  those  advancements  which  we  rejoice 
in,  as  indications  of  even  better  tilings  to  come. 

You  allow  that  Christianity  did  carry  the  nations 
through  the  crisis,  and  did  effect  a  change  indispensable 
to  the  advancement  of  mankind ;  but  you  affirm  that 
its  function  has  long  ago  determined  with  the  occasion. 
You  may  so  think  while  you  keep  the  facts  at  a  dis- 
tance, and  refuse  to  descend  from  generalities.  When 
the  facts  come  to  be  strictly  regarded,  as  they  should, 
then  it  will  be  seen  that  conditions  of  a  very  peculiar 
kind  were  attached  to  that  suffering  testimony,  and 
to  that  resistance,  by  means  of  which  the  Christian 
body,  throughout  the  Koman  world,  effected  what  it 
did  effect  in  the  course  of  two  hundred  years.  These 
conditions  imply  nothing  less  than  the  reality  of  the 
Christian  system,  and  its  consequent  perpetuity. 

I  affirm  that  this  revolution  implies  the  reality  of 
what  had  brought  it  on,  and  compels  a  belief  which 
touches  ourselves,  and  the  future. 

The  visible  circumstances  attending  this  revolution 
were  such  as  to  consist  well  with  our  supposition  of 
its  magnitude,  and  of  the  importance  of  its  conse- 
quences. 

The  nations  of  the  three  Continents  had  been  drawn 
together  to  take  their  places  upon  one  platform  of 
secular  administration :  one  system  of  government, 
ruled  by  the  same  political  maxims,  prevailed  over  the 
whole  of  this  diversified  surface.  To  one  will  all  men 
looked,  as  the  sovereign  source  of  good  or  ill.  All  felt 
every  moment  their  relationship  of  dependence  upon 
the  common  centre  ;  and  nations  the  most  remote  from 
each  other  were  continuallly  made  conscious  of  a  rela- 


THE   RESTORATION   OF    BELIEF.  63 

tionsliip  of  welfare  among  themselves.  [  The  living 
organic  structure  was  conscious  of  its  structure^  as 
one  body. 

The  period  of  this  structural  UNITY  was  coincident 
with  the  period  occupied  by  that  conflict  with  which  we 
are  now  concerned.  The  beginning  and  the  end  of 
the  Christian  crisis,  or  the  time  during  which  the 
Church,  as  a  body,  resisted  the  strenuous  endeavour  of 
the  State  to  maintain  and  enforce  its  own  maxims  of 
government — this  period  was  synchronous  with  the 
structural  unity  of  the  Empire.  When  the  conflict 
had  reached  and  passed  its  term,  which  was  when  the 
State  yielded  the  main  point  in  dispute,  and  recog- 
nized Christianity  as  one  among  the  religiones  licitae, 
then  the  Empire  split,  never  again  to  be  one  in  the 
same  sense.  During  a  sixty  years  after  this  crisis  had 
been  passed  through,  the  conflict  between  the  two 
parties  continued  to  be  carried  on  at  intervals,  but  the 
grounds  of  it  were  not  the  same ;  when  not  attributable 
to  the  wanton  ferocity  of  the  Emperor,  individually, 
or  to  his  fanaticism,  it  had  a  political  more  than  a  re- 
ligious meaning,  and  expressed  the  fears  of  a  party 
which  felt  itself  to  be  losing  ground  daily. 

The  fact,  which  has  often  been  adverted  to,  demands 
attention,  that  at  those  moments  in  the  course  of  the 
struggle  between  the  Church  and  the  Empire  which 
have  the  most  meaning  as  related  to  the  point  in 
dispute,  the  Roman  world  was  ruled  by  princes  who 
have  ever  since  occupied  pedestals,  as  models  of  sove- 
reign benignity,  of  political  wisdom,  and  of  personal 
virtue.  Whatever  the  Christian  people,  in  some  pro- 
vinces, might  suiFer  at  the  hands  of  ferocious  magis- 


z' 


G4  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

trates  or  emperors,  or  from  the  rabble,  when  the  Church 
suffered  in  its  proper  character^  as  the  •witness  against 
the  polytheism  of  the  State,  its  enemy  was  always  one 
of  these  pattern  princes. 

This  was  no  accident ;  for  it  sprung  from  the  con- 
ditions of  the  contest.  Whenever — passion  and  fana- 
ticism apart,  the  Roman  authorities  gave  attention  to 
the  perplexing  problem  which  Christianity  had  brought 
before  them,  and  when  they  endeavoured  to  apply  to 
it  the  only  general  principle  of  which  they  were  cogni- 
zant, and  to  give  effect  to  the  undoubted  rules  of 
Roman  policy  toward  the  subjugated  nations,  then 
they  issued  edicts,  which,  cruel  and  fatal  as  might  be 
the  consequences  thence  resulting,  did  truly  embody 
the  unchangeable  maxims  of  the  government  they 
administered. 

These  endeavours — violent  in  act,  temperate  in  in- 
tention, to  break  up  the  perplexity  which  could  not  be 
theoretically  removed — were  of  course  renewed  from 
time  to  time.  The  Master  of  the  World,  indulgent  as 
he  was  toward  the  rights  of  the  vanquished  gods,  could 
not  allow  the  Coerimoniae  liommiae  to  be  set  at  nought, 
nor  the  religion  of  the  Empire  and  of  all  nations  to  be 
denounced  as  nugatory  and  vicious. 

On  the  part  of  the  Christian  body,  willing  as  they 
were  to  yield  oljcdience  to  the  State,  no  choice  was  left 
them  but  to  protest  and  to  suffer.  Thus  the  contest  be- 
tween the  duty  of  the  State  and  the  conscience  of  tho 
remonstrants  was  quite  hopeless  ;  for  the  struggle  could 
terminate  in  no  way,  but  either  by  the  extermination 
of  the  New  Religion  and  its  adherents,  or  the  defeat 
and  dishonour  of  the  government. 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  65 

But  wlience  came  this  peremptory  necessity,  on  tlie 
side  of  the  Christain  body,  so  to  protest  and  so  to  suffer  ? 

The  point  actually  in  dispute  between  themselves  and 
the  authorities,  namely  an  external  compliance  with 
rites,  meaning  little  beyond  an  homage  rendered  to  the 
Emperor  as  patron  of  all  religions,  did  not  touch  the 
main  part  of  the  Christian  system  ;  it  was  an  incidental 
consequence  only  of  the  system  which  threw  its  adhe- 
rents into  collision  with  the  State.  To  profess  and 
maintain  Monotheism  was  not  the  peculiarity  of  Christi- 
anity. Sages  had  professed  the  same  belief,  and  had 
taught  it ;  and  so  might  these  Christians,  if  they  would, 
have  been  content  with  the  promulgation  of  an  abstract 
doctrine.  If  only  they  had  gone  about  maintaining  the 
purity  of  Theism,  and  telling  the  people,  in  a  good-na- 
tured manner,  that  the  gods  they  worshipped  were  no 
gods,  though  they  might  often  have  been  roughly  treated 
by  mobs,  yet  probably  they  would  have  provoked  no 
serious  animadversion  from  the  Roman  government. 

Besides,  if  an  abstract  truth  only  had  been  in 
question,  and  if  no  other  obligation  had  pressed  itself 
upon  Christians,  beyond  that  of  declaring  and  teaching 
it  when  and  where  they  could  gain  a  hearing,  evasions 
might  easily  have  been  resorted  to  by  themselves,  and 
would  gladly  have  been  accepted  at  the  tribunals,  suffi- 
cient at  least  for  the  immediate  purpose  of  screening 
themselves  from  suffering,  and  of  excusing  the  magis- 
trate the  odious  duty  of  inflicting  it. 

The  stress  of  that  compulsion  which  carried  so  many 
men,  women,  and  youths  through  the  endurance  of  tor- 
tures, even  to  death,  and  which  brought  so  many  apos- 
tates, pallid  and  trembling,  to  the  tribunals,  there  to 

6* 


GG  THE   RESTORATION   OP   RELIEF. 

clear  themselves,  at  the  cost  of  their  souls,  of  the  fatal 
suspicion, — this  compulsion  sprang  -wholij  from  tho 
perfect  conviction  they  had  of  tho  certainty  of  that 
BODY  OF  FACTS  which  Constituted,  and  in  which  consist- 
ed, their  Religious  Belief. 

The  JJelief  of  Facts,  not  an  opinion  of  tho  truth  of 
principles,  was  the  impulsive  cause  of  that  endurance 
of  suflorinf?  which  Ave  have  to  consider. 

Now  just  at  this  point  it  has  heen  usual  to  state  the 
argument  in  hehalf  of  Christianity  thus — The  constancy 
of  the  iNFartyrs  gave  evidence  of  the  sincerity  of  their 
faith.  This  faith  of  theirs,  considering  the  nearness  of 
the  events  to  which  it  related,  and  the  opportunities 
then  at  hand  for  sifting  the  evidence,  and  for  detecting 
frauds  or  illusions,  is  proof  of  the  historic  reality  of 
the  system  that  was  so  accepted  and  suftered  for.  So 
it  may  he ;  hut  this  is  not  precisely  the  light  in  which  I 
am  looking  at  the  case  before  ns. 

Perhaps  the  suftering  Church  had  not  at  any  time 
given  its  mind  with  sufficient  care  and  intellisrence 
to  the  task  of  sifting  that  evidence  on  tho  ground  of 
which  it  had  accepted  the  Gespel.  Its  own  Belief  was 
indeed  pronounced  in  the  most  unfaltering  tone,  and  on 
the  strength  of  it  life  was  surrendered,  and  the  rack 
endured ;  but  can  I  take  this  same  Belief  as  my  own, 
on  the  grounds  of  that  same  confidence?  This  is  not 
absolutely  certain. 


The  witness-bearing  of  the  early  Church  through 
seasons  of  intermittent  Buffering,  and  during  the  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  to  whieh  wc  now  confine  our  atten- 
tion, is  available  in  argument,  either  iwhfinitdy  or 
definitely.  Indefinitely,  and  yet  conclusively,  if  we 
choose  to  follow  our  better  feelings,  showing  the  excel- 
lence of  the  Religion  which  was  so  contended  for  ;  its 
moral  power  also;  and,  by  legitimate  inference,  its 
truth.  No  fault  should  be  found  with  this  mode  of  rea- 
soning; but  yet  we  may  have  recourse  to  another. 
Precisely  what  I  intend  will  best  appear  in  giving  at- 
tention to  two  or  three  of  those  instances  of  constancy 
to  whieh  imperial  edicts  gave  occasion. 

The  first  of  these  instances  possesses  the  advantage  of 
meeting  us  in  a  form  that  Ls  exempt  from  suspicion  of 
having  been  dressed  up  or  coloured,  to  serve  a  purpose. 
You  will  at  once  know  that  I  have  in  view  the  97th 
Epistle  of  Pliny  Junior,  and  the  imperial  reply  to  it. 

In  this  well-defined  instance  the  perplexity  of  the 
Roman  magistrate  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  necessity 
he  felt  himself  under  to  act  as  he  did  toward  the  Dissi- 
dents, and,  on  their  part,  the  counter-necessity  that 
compelled  them  to  suffer,  present  themselves  free  from 
all  ambiguity. 

The  I'roprifttor  found  the  province  to  which  he  had 
been  nppointed  in  a  state  to  which  he  could  not  be  in- 

e^7; 


68  THE   RESTOKATION    OF    BELIEF. 

different.  Things,  as  they  were,  could  not  be  left  to 
take  their  course.  The  mass  of  the  people  of  all  classes 
— multi  enim  omnis  sctatis,  omnis  ordinis,  utriusque 
sexus — or,  to  put  the  lowest  sense  we  can  upon  the  lan- 
guage of  Pliny,  a  large  proportion  of  them  had  become 
not  simply  indifferent,  to  the  Religion  of  the  State,  but 
eager  to  denounce  it  as  false,  and  they  had  adopted 
another.  The  temples  were  forsaken,  the  simulacra  of 
the  gods  and  of  the  emperor  were  defrauded  of  the  cus- 
tomary homage  ;  and,  besides,  stated  assemblages  of 
the  people  were  having  place  for  purpose  unknown,  and 
therefore  unlawful,  and  not  to  be  tolerated. 

It  does  not  appear  through  what  remissness  of  the 
authorities  this  defection  had  spread  so  far.  But  this 
new  representative  of  the  Majesty  of  the  Empire,  by 
showing  himself  awake  to  his  duty,  and  aware  of  the 
danger  impending,  had,  by  proclamation  of  imperial 
edicts,  by  judicial  inquests,  and  by  the  infliction  of  capi- 
tal punishment  upon  the  refractory,  made  some  progress 
in  restoring  law,  and  in  recovering  for  the  Cserimoniae 
Romanae  the  lost  ground,  before  he  had  determined  to 
report  the  facts  to  his  master,  and  ask  instructions. 
Multitudes  of  the  people  at  once  renounced  their  Chris- 
tianity, and  cleared  themselves  of  all  suspicion  by  com- 
pliance with  the  sacrificial  rites,  and  by  uttering,  with 
the  required  maledictions,  the  name  which  had  come  to 
designate  the  new  community.  For  the  purpose  of 
effecting  these  conversions  in  a  legal  manner,  the  Ro- 
man magistrate  had  caused  the  efl5gies  of  the  gods  and 
of  the  emperors  to  be  brought  into  court. 

Can  we  fancy  that  we  see  them  coming  forward,  dolls, 
or  be  they  what  they  might,  shouldered  by  the  officers 


THE    RESTORATION   0^   BELIEF.  69 

of  justice,  and  nodding,  as  they  came  !  In  style  of  art 
vastly  superior  are  these  simulacra  to  the  hideous  blocks 
which  now  grin  in  our  museums,  representatives  of  the 
gods  of  Owyhee  and  the  Sandwich  Islands ;  and  yet, 
whether  more  or  less  sightly,  these  effigies,  and  the  vast 
system  of  worship  which  they  symbolized,  were  Mocks, 
standing  in  the  way  of  the  next  great  movement  for- 
ward which  the  human  mind  was  to  take. 

This  enlightened  Roman  gentleman,  well  conversant 
as  he  was  with  whatever  had  been  said  and  taught  by 
the  philosophers  of  Greece  and  Rome,  was  conscious  of 
no  humiliation,  he  did  not  blush  when  these  stupid  sym- 
bols had  been  poised  near  him,  and  he,  prompting  the 
form  of  appellation — prseeunte  me — pointed  to  them  as 
fit  objects  of  devout  regard !  The  accused,  pale  and 
trembling  as  they  did  that  which  he  did  not  exact,  offered 
the  incense  and  the  wine,  and  departed  ! 

If  the  Roman  State,  then  in  so  advanced  a  condition 
of  intellectual  refinement,  and  when  represented  by  a 
philosopher  and  a  man  of  letters,  thus  showed  that  it 
was  not  then  making,  and  had  not  made,  any  progress 
toward  a  better  Theology,  can  it  be  thought  probable 
that  any  such  reform  would  spontaneously  come  about  ? 
Whether  or  not  there  might  yet  be  a  chance  of  some 
spontaneous  reform,  the  actual  reform  which  did  at 
length  take  place — the  actual  expulsion  of  the  gods,  and 
the  riddance  then  effected  for  the  human  mind  of  this 
encumbrance,  this  stop  to  progress,  was  otherwise 
brought  about. 

How  then  was  it  effected  ?  Not  by  the  silent  spread- 
ing of  an  opinion,  or  by  the  gentle  diffusion  of  a  better 
Theologic  Idea — platonie  or  of  any  other  sort ;  but  in 


70  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

this  severe  manner,  namely,  that  in  all  the  provinces 
of  the  Roman  empire,  as  in  this  of  Bithynia,  a  multi- 
tude of  the  people,  high  and  lovr,  had  accepted,  as  cer- 
tain, a  belief  concerning  a  Person,  which  belief  did,  by 
an  incidental  consequence  therewith  connected,  forbid 
their  compliance  with  polytheistic  rites,  and  compel 
them  to  sujQFer. 

However  many,  at  a  time  of  alarm,  might  be  the  fal- 
tering and  the  timid,  there  were  never  wanting  some  of 
firmer  moral  structure,  who,  as  Pliny  here  tells  ns, 
"  could  by  no  means  be  induced  either  to  offer  sacrifice 
to  the  gods,  or  to  speak  injuriously  of  Christ."  Rather 
than  do  this,  they  endured  torments,  and  they  accepted 
death. 

This  constancy  of  the  early  Christians,  so  severely 
tried,  might  well  be  admitted  as  valid  proof  of  the 
reahty  of  the  belief  on  which  it  rested,  especially  con- 
nected as  it  was  with  a  blameless  morality.  Such  an 
admission  will  readily  be  made  by  every  mind  that  is 
fraught  with  moral  sensibihty,  and  which  has  not  been 
damaged  by  sophistry.  Every  natural  sympathy  car- 
ries us  along  with  the  sufferers,  as  we  stand  in  the 
crowd  and  witness  the  grave  inflexibility  of  some,  the 
flushed  excitement  of  others,  of  youths  and  women,  and 
the  tremors  and  the  anguish  of  many  who  yet  did 
endure  to  the  end.  Thus  far,  or  so  far  as  our  truest 
emotions  will  carry  us,  we  involuntarily  side  with  the 
condemned.  With  them  we  tliink  that  "  they  be  no 
gods  which  are  graven  with  art  and  man's  device." 
With  them  we  feel,  when  we  see  them  led  out  to  die 
rather  than  yield  their  behef,  or  be  false  to  it. 

But  might  not  these  Christians  have  excused  them- 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  71 

selves,  and  by  means  of  some  evasion  have  stood  clear  of 
consequences  so  frightful  ?  Whether  thej  might  have 
done  so  or  not,  it  would  now  be  superfluous  to  inquire. 
They  did  not  do  so,  and  it  was  by  a  century  and  a-half 
of  suffering,  on  the  part  of  the  Church,  that  the  gods 
were  thrown  from  their  pedestals. 

This  Avas  the  obvious  part  of  the  revolution  which 
■was  then  taking  place.  But  another  revolution — not 
obvious  indeed,  and  yet  not  less  important,  and  not  less 
indispensable  in  relation  to  the  progress  of  the  human 
mind  and  the  development  of  its  higher  faculties — was 
then,  and  by  the  same  terrible  means,  brought  about. 

We  may  just  imagine  that  the  philosophic  Pliny, 
if  we  could  have  taken  him  apart  in  his  hours  of  relaxa- 
tion, might  have  been  brought  on  so  far  as  to  acknow- 
ledge that  the  men  whom  he  had  ordered  to  execu- 
tion in  the  morning,  were  right  on  the  great  principle 
of  Monotheism.  This  abstract  doctrine  was  not  new 
to  him,  and  it  had  received  the  adhesion  of  illustrious 
ages.  There  stood,  however,  in  the  rear  of  this  purer 
theology,  a  principle,  then  in  course  of  development, 
which  neither  Pliny  nor  any  man  of  his  time  had 
thought  of,  or  could  have  been  made  to  comprehend. 
Yet.  it  is  the  axiom  on  which  hinges  the  immeasurable 
moral  difference  between  classical  antiquity  and  the 
modern  mind.  Even  the  suflferers  in  that  early  contest 
were  not  competent  to  put  forward  a  clear  enunciation 
of  the  principle  which  themselves  were  so  painfully 
bringing  to  bear  upon  human  affairs. 

At  present  we  stand  clear  of  the  question  as  to  the 
truth  of  the  Religion,  in  behalf  of  which  the  early 
Church  gave  its  suffering  testimony.     We  abstain  also 


72  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

from  "what  belongs  to  those  moral  and  spiritual  benefits 
which  Christianity  brought  with  it,  and  postpone  also 
all  inquiry  touching  its  own  interior  beauty  and  gran- 
deur. The  one  purport  of  these  preliminary  pages  is 
to  put  in  a  distinct  light  what  it  was  which  the  Church 
of  the  early  age  did  for  mankind  in  preparation  for  a 
new  moral  era,  and  under  what  conditions  this  neces- 
sary function  was  discharged.  If  the  same  statement, 
somewhat  varied  in  terms,  seems  to  recur  Avithin  the 
limit  of  a  few  pages,  pardon  the  brief  trespass  on 
your  patience :  this  repetition  may  save  us  time  in 
treating  those  deeper  subjects  which  I  have  mainly  in 
view. 

A  final  clearance  of  the  gods  and  goddesses  was  to 
be  eflfected ;  and  this,  not  by  the  gentle  means  of  philo- 
sophic suasion,  but  by  bringing  thousands  of  the  people, 
in  all  provinces  of  the  lloman  empire,  into  a  posi- 
tion of  unavoidable  resistance  toward  the  government, 
neither  party  finding  it  possible  to  retreat  from  its 
ground:  not  the  government,  because  the  first  prin- 
ciples of  the  empire  were  impugned  by  this  opposition ; 
not  the  Christian  people,  because  it  was  not  a  mere 
opinion  that  sustained  their  position,  but  a  belief 
toward  a  Person  whose  authority  they  regarded  as 
paramount  to  every  other. 

To  insist  on  the  one  side,  and  to  resist  on  the  other, 
were  evenly -balanced  necessities,  of  which  frequent 
martyrdoms  were  the  inevitable  consequence. 

But  this  violent  process,  in  the  course  of  which  an 
issue  in  favour  of  the  8ufi"erers  was  continually  be- 
coming more  certain,  gave  eifect  to  a  principle  unap- 
prehended  by   antiquity,    and   only   in    an   indistinct 


THE    KESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  73 

manner,  and  insensibly  recognized  on  the  Christian 
side;  yet  apart  from  which  there  could  have  been 
no  such  development  of  the  human  mind  in  the  mass, 
and  no  such  depth  given  to  the  moral  faculties  indivi- 
dually, as  have  in  fact  come  to  set  the  modern,  immea- 
surably in  advance  of  the  ancient,  civilization. 

The  virtue  and  duty  of  truthfulness,  as  between  man 
and  man,  had  been  taught,  and  well  enough  understood, 
among  ancient  nations,  whether  more  or  less  advanced  in 
civilization.  And  so  had  the  religious  sanctions  of  mora- 
lity. That  one  lesson  which  remained  to  be  brought  out 
and  to  be  wronght  into  the  hearts  of  men,  was  the  RELI- 
GIOUS OBLIGATION  OF  BELIEF ;  an  obligation  not  resting 
upon  communities  as  a  public  or  social  charge,  but  pend- 
ing with  the  whole  of  its  weight  upon  the  conscience  of 
the  individual  man;  an  obligation  personal,  a  privilege 
unalienable,  and  when  duly  discharged,  a  function  giving 
the  individual  man  a  pledge  of  his  immortality. 

Until  this  general  principle  should  be  worked  out  as 
an  axiom  in  morals,  nothing  could  be  hoped  for  as  to 
the  destinies  of  the  human  family.  Now  that  it  has 
been  thus  worked  out,  and  has  been  accepted  as  an 
axiom,  the  aspect  of  human  affairs  can  never  be  so 
lowering,  as  that  we  should  despond  concerning  those 
destinies.  But  have  we  sufficiently  regarded  the  fact, 
that  this  great  problem  was  solved  for  us  by  the  martyr 
Church  of  the  century  and  half  now  in  prospect  ? 

The  sufferers  did  not  know  precisely  what  they  were 
doing  in  this  behalf;  and  yet,  with  an  observable  uni- 
formity, the  professions  made  before  tribunals  and  on 
scaffolds  took  the  true  directions  as  related  thereto. 

As   it  had  been  with  Pliny,  so  Avith  L.  Statius  Qua- 

7 


74  THE   RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

dratus,  proconsul  of  Asia :  his  personal  dispositions 
Avere  such  as  were  becoming  to  a  Roman  magis- 
trate ;  he  was  neither  sanguinary  nor  fanatical ;  but  his 
position  in  the  province  was  different.  The  severities 
to  which  Pliny  had  allowed  himself  to  have  recourse 
were  prompted  entirely  by  his  own  sense  of  public 
duty :  otherwise  they  were  uncalled  for.  But  Qua- 
dratus  found  himself  pressed  upon  by  the  fanaticism 
of  the  populace  ;  the  rabble  of  Smyrna,  incited,  as  it 
appears  by  the  Jews,  was  up,  and  a  victim  must  be 
thrown  out  to  appease  the  monster. 

The  martyrdom  of  Polycarp,  whatever  else  it  may 
show  or  may  prove,  brings  out  distinctly  those  condi- 
tions of  the  struggle  between  Christianity  and  the 
State,  to  which  I  have  already  adverted.  The  aged 
bishop  so  behaved  on  the  occasion  as  the  rule  of  Chris- 
tian constancy  required  him  to  behave  ;  nor  can  there 
be  alleged  against  him  any  indication  of  fanatical  ex- 
citement. He  had  consented  to  conceal  himself  from 
the  Proconsul's  officers  so  long  as  this  course  might 
fairly  be  taken.  He  surrendered  himself  to  them  Avith 
dignity,  and  these  officers  had,  no  doubt,  been  enjoined 
to  treat  so  venerable  a  man  Avith  due  respect.  He  was 
urged  to  yield  so  far  to  the  authorities  as  might  enable 
them  to  screen  him  from  the  popular  fury.  Why  not 
invoke  the  Emperor,  and  offer  sacrifice  ?  What  hai'm 
can  there  be  in  uttering  the  words  KiJpw  Kaiooip,  and  then 
to  sacrifice,  and  thus  to  save  yourself?  xai  Ovmc  xai 
6ia(5w?fo9tte,.  This  advicc,  kindly  intended,  was  importu- 
nately urged.  "  Never  shall  I  do  Avhat  you  advise." 
Then  if  not,  the  time  of  forbearance  had  passed,  and 


THE    RESTORATION    OP    BELIEF.  7^ 

the  aged  man  was  thrust  from  the  chariot  Avith  violence 
by  those  who  had  charge  of  him. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  the  clamour  of  the  mob,  when 
the  bishop's  name  was  proclaimed  in  court,  the  Procon- 
sul used  all  persuasions  that  might  shake  his  constancy  ; 
and  in  so  doing  he  shines  by  the  side  of  the  philosopher, 
who,  while  surrounded  by  a  trembling  crowd,  at  once 
sends  whoever  would  not  yield,  to  capital  punishment. 
"  Swear  by  the  genius  of  Caesar.  Change  your  purpose 
— utter  the  words,  'Away  with  the  Atheists.'  " 

'Away  with  the  Atheists,'  he  could  say  in  his  own 
sense,  and  he  said  it  with  a  groan.  "  Then  swear, 
and  I"  will  release  you:  revile  Christ!"  This  might 
not  be.  Polycarp  had  been  numbered  with  the  ser- 
vants of  Christ  from  his  infancy ; — his  martyrdom  oc- 
curred A.  D.  167,  or  a  year  later  ;  in  his  youth,  there- 
fore, he  was  contemporary  with  the  last  survivor  of 
the  Apostles,  and  thus  the  whole  of  his  religious  per- 
suasion resolved  itself  into  a  personal  consciousness  of 
facts.  These  facts,  true  or  false,  or  partly  true  and 
partly  illusory,  constituted  the  ground  or  ultimate 
reason  of  his  constancy :  how  could  he  blaspheme  his 
"  Kma  AND  Saviour?"  "I  am  a  Christian,"  and 
therefore,  while  professing  the  Christian  rule  to  obey 
magistrates,  no  way  of  escape  was  opened  to  him, 
except  that  of  contradicting  the  consciousness  he  had 
of  his  own  history. 

With  Polycarp  this  consciousness  was  more  imme- 
diate and  more  personal  than  it  could  be  with  others, 
his  contemporaries  ;  nevertheless  with  them,  not  less 
than  with  himself,  the  ground  of  that  Christian  forti- 
tude which,  in  the  end,  prevailed  over  the  polytheism 


76  THE   RESTORATION^   OF   BELIEF. 

of  the  State,  was  a  belief  toward  a  Person  ;  it  was 
not  an  opinion  as  to  a  doctrine  :  and  here  we  should 
take  care  to  distinguish  between  the  various  motives 
that  might  come  in  to  sustain  the  courage  of  a  martyr 
in  his  extremity  of  suffering,  and  the  one  ground  on 
which  his  constancy  rested.  In  the  instance  of  the 
Bishop  of  Smyrna  (as  in  that  of  Cyprian,  probably,) 
considerations  of  personal  honour,  as  the  venerated 
Chief  of  the  Christian  people  around  him,  may  have 
had  an  influence.  So  might  the  motive  to  which  he 
himself  alludes  :  "  You  threaten  me  with  a  fire  which 
does  its  work  in  one  hour ;  but  you  think  not  of  the 
fire  of  eternal  punishment  that  awaits  the  wicked." 
These,  or  other  motives,  would  have  shown  little  in- 
trinsic force,  if  they  had  rested  upon  an  opinion ;  their 
power  sprang  from  their  connexion  with  a  definite  his- 
toric belief. 


It  is  in  the  course  of  things  that  a  Great  Prin- 
ciple of  conduct  should  have  been  long  acted  upon, 
perhaps  for  a  century  or  more,  before  it  comes  to  be 
explicitly  recognized,  or  to  be  formally  defined  and 
registered  in  treatises.  So  it  was  in  the  present  in- 
stance. The  suffering  Church  had  felt  the  sacred  obli- 
gations of  Truth,  and  Christians,  individually,  had 
passed  through  the  fiery  trial  which  these  obligations 
required  them  to  meet, — compelled  so  to  do  by  a  tacit 
recognition  of  this  principle,  that  he  who  fears  God 
must  not  deny  his  inward  Belief,  even  although  the 
avowal  costs  him  life. 

The  ACTS  of  the  early  martyrdom  might  be  copi- 
ously cited  in  illustration  of  what  is  here  affirmed. 
But  at  length,  as  was  natural,  the  implicit  Principle 
got  utteranee  for  itself,  and  it  did  so  continually  with 
more  and  more  distinctness  :  it  came  to  be  defined, 
until  that  great  Law  of  Conscience,  which  places  the 
modern  mind  in  so  great  an  advance  beyond  the 
ancient  mind,  was  allowed  to  stand  in  the  very  fore- 
front of  ethical  axioms. 

I  do  not  know  whether  it  might  not  be  found  in 
nearly  as  distinct  a  form  among  the  earlier  Christian 
writings ;  but  it  is  found,  well  and  finely  enunciated 
in  that  admirable  Tract  in  which  Origen  deals  so 
strictly  with  the  consciences  of  his  Christian  contem- 

7*  (77) 


78  THE   RESTORATION   OF    BELIEF. 

porarics,  who  were  then  passing  through  a  season  of 
the  most  severe  suffering.  The  treatise — "  urging  to 
martyrdom,"  is  of  considerable  length.  It  must  suffice 
to  state  the  drift  of  it,  so  far  as  it  bears  upon  my 
present  purpose. 

The  terrors  of  torture — more  than  the  fear  of  death, 
(for  at  that  time  the  infliction  of  torture,  rather  than 
of  death  appears  to  have  been  the  determinate  inten- 
tion of  the  Roman  authorities)  had  shaken  the  con- 
stancy of  many  among  the  Christians  ;  and  so  it  was 
that  pleas  and  evasions  of  every  kind  had  been  sought 
for  and  had  been  found,  by  aid  of  which  the  religious 
obligations  attaching  to  a  Christian  belief  might  be 
made  to  consist  with  a  retreat  from  the  field  of  con- 
flict. Origen  meets  and  refutes  these  evasions,  one 
by  one,  and  in  doing  so  he  gives  expression  to  a 
principle  which  we  all  of  this  age — believers  and 
unbelievers,  profess  to  think  sacred,  and  which  we 
acknowledge  as  the  basis  of  personal  virtue,  in  the 
abandonment  of  which  all  self-respect  is  gone. 

Well  does  this  confessor  labour  to  animate  the 
courage  of  his  faltering  brethren  by  opening  before 
them  the  prospect  of  immortality :  but  he  hastens 
toward  his  main  purpose,  which  was  to  snatch  from 
them  those  evasive  pleas,  in  search  of  which  too  many 
of  them  were  employing  an  ill-directed  ingenuity. 
The  timid  were  trying  to  persuade  themselves  that 
a  genuine  faith,  hidden  in  the  heart,  might  avail  for 
ensuring  their  salvation ;  for  "  with  the  heart  man 
believeth  for  justification" — nay,  but  salvation  has 
another  condition,  w^hich  is  not  by  us  to  be  severed 
from  the  first,  for,  "  with  the  mouth  confession  is  made 


THE    RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  79 

unto  salvation  ;"  and  there  might  be  room  to  think 
that  a  bold  confession  of  the  truth,  even  if  the  heart 
is  too  little  animated  by  love  to  God,  honours  Him 
more  than  does  a  heart  which  withholds  this  con- 
fession. . 

Whether  we  grant  this  or  not,  it  must  be  acknow- 
ledged that  this  Father  is  here  laying  the  foundation- 
stone  of  our  modern  sense  of  the  stern  obligation  of 
religious  sincerity.  Yet  the  laying  the  stone  at  that 
time,  what  courage  did  it  demand  ?  Such  courage  as 
he  himself  displayed  in  the  hour  of  trial  ? 

The  Proconsul  Quadratus,  as  we  have  seen,  had 
vehemently  urged  upon  Polycarp  the  friendly  advice, 
to  save  himself  by  uttering  five  words — Only  swear  by 
the  genius  of  Ceesar,  and  I  will  let  you  go.  It  means 
nothing,  or  very  little.  It  appears  that  the  Christiana 
of  a  later  time  had  begun  to  suggest  this  very  evasion, 
one  to  another,  and  that  they  were  endeavouring  to  get  it 
accredited  and  accepted  as  valid.  Not  so,  says  Origen,  it 
is  a  hollow  excuse,  and  will  not  save  you.  If  it  be  a  trans- 
gression to  swear  by  Heaven,  by  Earth,  by  Jerusalem, 
by  one's  own  head,  how  much  greater  a  sin  must  it  be 
to  swear  by  the  fortunes  of  another,  oixiwa:  tv^r^v  tuo.l 
Can  we  dare  to  whisper  a  faithless  purpose  in  the 
presence  of  Him  who  declares  that  he  is  jealous  of  His 
right  over  us  ;  and  to  do  this  at  the  moment  when  in- 
quiry is  made  concerning  our  faith,  and  when  torments 
are  in  sight  ?  '  Confess  me  before  men,'  says  Christ, 
'I  will  confess  you  :  deny  me,  and  I  deny  you.' 

To  give  no  place  to  the  Devil,  who  is  ever  sug- 
gesting evasions,  to  allow  no  thoughts  which  tend  to 
a  denial  of  Christ  to  lodge  in  our  hearts,  to  put  from 


80  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

US  the  very  recollection  of  those  most  dear  to  us, 
children  and  wife,  or  earthly  possessions, — to  do  this 
is  to  satisfy  the  requirements  of  Christ :  to  do  other- 
wise, or  any  thing  less,  is  to  fall  short  of  them,  and  we 
must  take  the  consequence. 

Let  us  note  the  fact  that  this  strenuous  mode  of 
dealing  with  the  infirm  consciences  of  his  brethren,  on 
the  part  of  Origen,  and  whence  were  to  result  benefits 
incalculable  to  mankind,  drew  the  whole  of  its  force 
from  an  Jnstoric  source,  that  is  to  say,  from  the 
authority  of  Christ. 

When  we  entered,  says  Origen,  upon  the  Christian 
life,  we  pledged  ourselves  to  observe  its  conditions,  to 
take  up  the  cross,  and  to  deny  ourselves,  even  for  His 
sake  who  shed  His  precious  blood  for  our  redemption. 

As  to  the  common  obligations  of  truthfulness,  as 
between  man  and  man,  they  had  long  before  been  well 
understood;  but  now  this  new  and  higher  obligation, 
binding  man,  individually,  to  God  as  the  object  of  all 
worship  and  duty,  came  on  to  be  enforced,  and  Origen 
urges  it  upon  his  brethren  with  reasons  which  could  not 
be  rebutted ;  and  he  sustains  these  reasons,  not  by 
philosophy  (with  which  however  he  himself  was  con- 
versant,) but  by  many  pertinent  citations  of  Scripture. 
To  give  tbis  higher  obligation  its  utmost  force,  he  infers 
it  from  the  tenor  of  Christ's  admonitions  to  his  dis- 
ciples, that  the  call  to  martydom  is  a  divine  call ;  it  is 
a  summons  on  the  part  of  God,  calling  upon  His  ser- 
vants to  bear  testimony,  on  His  behalf,  before  the 
world.  Who  shall  disobey  this  summons,  when  thus  it 
is  uttered  ?     "  Ye  are  my  witnesses  before  all  nations ; 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  81 

and  it  shall  be  given  you  in  tlie  hour  when  it  is  needed, 
what  ye  shall  speak." 

He  who  thus  exhorted  his  brethren  to  hold  fast  their 
profession  steadfast  unto  the  end,  did  himself  hold  it 
fast :  for  although  he  did  not  die  m  martyrdom  he  died 
of  it.  When  a  boy  he  had  written  to  his  father,  then 
in  prison  as  a  Christian:  'Be  steadfast,  and  do  not 
think  of  us:'  a  life  of  labour,  penury,  and  suffering,  for 
Christ's  sake,  was  his  OAvn  commentary  on  this  filial 
and  generous  admonition.  From  his  master,  Clement 
of  Alexandria,  Origen  had  learned  the  rudiments  of 
that  doctrine  which  he  more  fully  expounds  :  It  is,  says 
Clement,  from  the  love  of  God  that  we  are  to  suffer  as 
Christians.  Having  taken  upon  ourselves  the  name  of 
Christ,  if  we  shrink  from  the  confession  of  Him,  we 
are  not  called  men  of  little  faith,  or  of  weak  faith  ;  but 
of  none.  Thus  was  the  Religious  Obligation  of  Truth 
interpreted  to  demand  suffering  for  the  sake  of  it,  when- 
ever the  Christian  was  challenged  to  answer  the  ques- 
tion— Art  thou  a  Christian  ? 

From  the  pages  of  every  Christian  writer  of  the 
second  and  third  centuries,  passages  might  easily  be 
cited,  showing  that,  though  differently  expressed,  this 
one  principle  was  working  itself  forward  into  notice, 
until  it  should  become  the  recognized  law  of  the  Chris- 
tian profession.  'Better  for  us  to  die,  than  to  live,  and 
lie  to  God.'  In  a  condensed  form  it  stood  thus : — It  is 
J  who  now,  if  I  dare  not  forego  my  hope  of  immortality, 
must  endure  the  scourge,  the  rack,  the  fire  !  It  is  T 
who  must  meet  death,  thus  armed  with  aggravated 
terrors  !  The  question  whether  I  shall  face  these  ter- 
rors, or  shall  turn  aside  from   them,  is  between  God 


82  THE    RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

and  my  soul.  My  Christian  brethren  may  indeed  aid 
me  by  their  plaudits  and  exhortations  while  I  suffer, 
but  they  can  neither  suffer  these  torments  for  me,  nor 
can  they  take  upon  themselves  the  future  consequences 
if  I  fall  away,  and  deny  my  Lord :  they  cannot  be  con- 
demned in  my  place. 

It  was  thus,  and  it  was  by  a  process  of  such  extreme 
severity,  and  it  was  by  the  repetition  of  it  in  thousands 
of  instances,  through  the  lapse  of  more  than  two  hun- 
dred years,  that  the  most  signal  of  all  the  revolutions 
which  have  marked  the  moral  history  of  man  was 
effected,  and  was  lastingly  established.  It  was  thus 
that  the  individual  man  was  lifted  up  from  his  obscure 
place,  as  a  unit  in  the  mass  of  humanity,  and  was  raised 
to  his  true  position,  and  was  invested  with  his  proper 
dignity,  as  related  individually  to  God.  It  was  thus, 
and  it  was  amid  the  unutterable  horrors  of  the  pagan 
persecutions,  that  the  meanest  of  the  species,  the  slave, 
the  outcast,  did  at  length  secure  for  himself,  and  for  his 
peers  of  all  times  and  countries,  a  formal  recognition  of 
his  worth  and  rights,  as  the  equal — in  a  moral  estimation 
— of  the  noble  and  the  learned.  It  was  thus,  even  by  the 
endurance  of  all  imaginable  forms  of  misery  on  the  part 
of  the  thousands  whose  names  have  perished  on  earth, 
that  we,  of  this  present  time,  have  learned  to  regard 
with  rehgious  respect,  and  patiently  to  listen  to,  who- 
ever it  is  that,  in  the  name  of  God,  comes  forward  to 
profess  his  belief — yes,  or  his  disbelief. 


The  removal  of  polytheism  was  a  great  work ;  and 
yet  the  recognition  and  the  development  of  that  Princi- 
ple which  assigns  to  man  his  true  place  and  dignity, 
was  a  greater  or  more  difBcult  work.  Both  were  effect- 
ed by  the  constancy  of  the  Early  Church ;  both  were 
effected  by  means  of  a  long-continued  and  most  severe 
course  of  suffering ;  and  both  sprung  out  of,  and  were 
inseparably  connected  with,  a  Definite  Persuasion,  as 
to  the  EVENTS  of  a  preceding  time,  and  as  to  the  au- 
thority of  a   Person,   and  as  to  the   authenticity  of 

BOOKS. 

Yet  the  modern  world  has  not  come  into  the  enjoy- 
ment of  the  benefits  which  were  thus  won  for  it  by  the 
Ancient  Church,  without  a  further  conflict ;  and  this 
conflict  was  even  more  severe  than  the  first,  and  was 
of  much  longer  continuance. 

Perhaps  it  might  be  po'ssible  to  glean  from  the  pages 
of  classical  antiquity  so  many  as  half-a-dozen  sen- 
tences, bearing  an  apparent  resemblance  to  those  which 
are  found  so  plentifully  in  the  early  Christian  writers, 
and  in  which  the  religious  obligations  of  truth  are 
affirmed.  Even  if  it  were  so,  i\\e  facts  remain  precisely 
as  they  were ;  for  whatever  philosophers  might  have 
said,  they  had  wholly  failed  to  gain  a  hearing  for  their 
doctrine  among  the  people.  Nor  did  the  governments 
of  those  times  ever  recognize  any  such  principle ;  they 

(83) 


84  THE    RESTORATION    OE    BELIEF. 

understood  nothing  of  the  sort.  To  the  Early  Church 
it  was  as  if  the  bare  idea  had  never  before  presented 
itself  to  the  mind  of  man.  The  battle  had  to  be  fouii;ht 
on  ground  every  inch  of  which  must  be  contended  for : 
it  was  otherwise  as  to  the  assault  upon  polytheism,  for 
on  this  ground  a  better  theology  had  been  long  before 
propounded,  although  not  accepted. 

But  wdien  at  length  the  Church,  by  which  we  mean 
the  Christian  Body  throughout  the  Roman  world,  had 
achieved  this  great  service,  and  had  given  expression  to 
what  may  be  called  the  Martyr  principle,  there  follow- 
ed a  consequence  which  was  to  entail  upon  the  world  a 
new  catena  of  martyrdoms. 

A  consciousness  of  the  sacred  obliojations  of  Relio-ious 
Truth  had  given  the  ancient  Martyr  his  constancy ; 
but  then  a  spurious  counterpart  of  the  same  principle 
followed  very  quickly,  and  it  served  to  inflame  the  fa- 
naticism of  the  Persecutor.  It  was  thus  argued  :  If 
it  be  a  duty  we  owe  to  God  to  profess  the  Truth,  even 
at  the  cost  of  life,  must  it  not  be  a  duty  of  parallel 
.  obligation,  to  suppress  and  exterminate  Error  ?  This 
inference,  illogical  as  it  was,  did  not  wait  long  to  be 
drawn  or  to  be  acted  upon.  It  became  an  almost  univer- 
sally admitted  axiom.  Shall  we  attempt  to  number  its 
victims  ?  Doubtless  they  have  been  a  thousand  times 
as  many  as  those  that  were  immolated  by  the  pagan 
authorities. 

This  wrong  and  fatal  Inference,  accepted  so  early  as 
it  was,  came  at  length  to  be  regarded  as  an  axiom, 
needing  no  proof,  indeed  admitting  of  none,  for  it  was 
self-evident.     If  you  would  see  in  how  cool  and  confid- 


THE    RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.    .  85 

ing  a  manner  it  is  advanced,  read  the  Epistles  of  Inno- 
cent III,,  and  the  sermons  of  St.  Bernard. 

If  the  mere  exclusion  of  suffering  and  trial  were 
the  only  consideration  worth  regarding,  then  one  might 
be  tempted  to  wish  the  first  principle — the  Martyr 
doctrine — true  and  good  as  it  is,  had  for  ever  slept, 
unthought  of,  rather  than  that,,  in  becoming  known,  it 
should  have  given  occasion  to  the  establishment  of  its 
spurious  counterpart — the  Persecutor's  doctrine.  But 
we  are  not  at  liberty  thus  to  wish ;  we  may  not  thus 
reason ;  for  every  thing  about  us  shows  that  the  ulti- 
mate destinies  of  the  human  family  are  not  otherwise 
to  be  reached  than  through  deep  blood-sodden  ways  of 
suffering,  extreme  in  degree,  and  drawn  out  through 
centuries. 

It  is — it  must  be,  enough  for  us,  that  the  terrible  re- 
sults of  the  spurious  Inference  whence  all  persecutions 
have  borrowed  their  apology,  have  not  availed  to  de- 
prive us  of  the  inestimable  benefits  of  the  previous 
Truth.  This  Truth  is  ours  now  ;  it  is  ours  as  an  in- 
heritance, the  encumbrances  of  which  have  all  been  dis- 
charged. Dare  we  relinquish  it  ?  When  we  do  so,  a 
night  that  can  have  no  morning  will  be  before  us. 

But  at  this  present  moment  we,  that  is,  we  Christian 
men  are  forbidden  to  entertain  the  thought  of  any  such 
treason  by  those  who  (so  strange  sometimes  are  the 
shiftings  of  positions  among  parties)  are  vehemently, 
nay  even  passionately,  taking  up  the  Martyr  Principle 
won  for  us  by  the  ancient  Church,  and  are  pleading  it 
in  their  own  behalf,  while  they  are  making  their  deadly 
assault  upon  this  same  Christianity  !  It  may  be  well 
to  listen  for  a  moment  to  this  new  utterance  of  an  old, 

8 


80  THE   RESTORATION   OP   BELIEF. 

but  not  obsolete,  doctrine.  How  is  it  tbat  the  apostles 
of  Disbelief  screen  themselves  from  rebuke  ?  It  is  by 
taking  to  themselves  the  Truth  which  the  "  noble  army 
of  Martyrs"  purchased  for  the  world  on  the  rack  and 
at  the  stake  ! 

A  recent  writer  professes  his  confidence  that  his 
reader  will  "judge  his  argument  (in  disproof  of  Christi- 
anity) and  himself,  as  before  the  bar  of  God."  Do  we 
not  hear  in  these  words  the  very  tones  of  the  Martyr 
Church  ?  "  *  *  jf  faith  be  a  spiritual  and  per- 
sonal thing ;  if  Belief,  given  at  random  to  mere  high  pre- 
tensions, is  an  immorality ;  if  Truth  is  not  to  be  quite 
trampled  down,  nor  Conscience  to  be  wholly  palsied  in 
us ;  then  what,  I  ask,  was  I  to  do  when  I  saw  that  the 
genealogy  in  the  first  chapter  of  Matthew  is  an  errone- 
ous copy  of  that  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  that  the 
writer  has  not  only  copied  wrong,  but  also  counted 
■ft^rong,  so  as  to  mistake  eighteen  for  fourteen  ?" 

Then,  when  a  second  and  a  more  serious  discrepancy 
presented  itself,  what  course  did  this  "martyr"  take  ? 

"  On  what  ground  of  righteousness,  which  I  could 
approve  to  God  and  my  conscience,  could  I  shut  my 
eyes  to  this  second  fact?"  Again,  finding  Christianity 
utterly  indefensible  ;  "  Would  it  have  been  faithfulness 
to  the  God  of  Truth,  or  a  self-willed  love  of  my  own 
prejudices,  if  I  tad  said,  I  will  not  inquire  further,  for 
fear  it  should  unsettle  my  faith  ?"  To  have  stopped 
any  where  in  this  course  of  disbelieving  would  have  been 
in  his  view,  "sinful;"  it  would  have  been  to  "  plant  the 
root  of  insincerity,  falsehood,  bigotry,  cruelty,  and  uni- 
versal rottenness  of  soul." 

I  think  I  could  have  shown  this  writer,  or  any  who 


THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  87 

may  take  the  same  ground,  what  he  miglit  have  done 
amid  these  perplexities,  which  would  have  been  far  better, 
than  on  account  of  difficulties  such  as  these,  to  renounce 
Christianity !  But  this  is  beside  my  present  purpose. 
This  writer  thinks  that,  to  have  shrunk  from  his  con- 
victions, which  ended  in  his  entire  rejection  of  the  Gos- 
pel, would  have  been  "infidelity  to  God,  and  Truth, 
and  righteousness." 

If,  indeed,  the  case  be  thus,  then  it  is  certain  that 
this  great  Principle  of  the  Religious  Obligations  of 
Truth  must  not  be  abandoned  by  any  of  us.  But  we 
may  listen  to  another  witness,  who  speaks  to  the  same 
effect,  and  he  is  one  whose  testimony  is  equally  unex- 
ceptionable. He  professes  to  admire  the  Bible,  but  he 
protests  against  its  pretensions,  as  of  divine  origin,  or 
as  possessing  any  authority  more  than  belongs  to  the 
Iliad,  or  to  the  Divina  Comedia,  or  to  the  Paradise 
Lost,  or  to  Shakspeare's  Macbeth :  he  says,  "  We  may 
not  lie  to  God.  It  may  be  convenient  to  let  things 
alone ;  it  may  save  cowards  trouble  to  shrink  from 
the  responsibility  of  using  honestly  the  faculties  which 
God  has  given  them :  but  it  will  not  do  in  the  long 
run ;  and  the  debt  of  longest  date  bears  the  heaviest 
interest." 

So  thought  the  martyr  bishop  of  Antioch,  and  the 
martyr  bishop  of  Smyrna,  and  the  tens  of  thousands 
who,  in  their  day,  have  trod  the  same  thorny  path  to  a 
land  which  none  shall  reach  who  have  "  lied  to  God." 
Thus  far  then  Believers  and  Unbelievers  are  entirely 
agreed  :  yet  let  another  witness  be  heard ;  and  in  hear- 
ing him  one  might  think  that  his  words  are  an  echo 
that  has  come  softly  travelling  down,  through  sixteen  cen- 


88  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

turics,  from  some  field  of  blood,  or  some  forum,  or  some 
amphitheatre,  where  Christian  men  were  witnessing  a 
good  confession  in  the  midst  of  their  mortal  agonies  ! 
Tins  witness  is  one  who  assures  us  that  "  he  can  believe 
no  longer,  he  can  worship  no  longer :  he  has  discovered 
that  the  Creed  of  his  early  days  is  baseless,  or  falla- 
cious." Yet  he,  too,  takes  up  the  martyr  truth,  that 
we  must  not  lie  to  God.  lie  is  one  to  whom  "  the  pui'- 
suit  of  Truth  is  a  daily  martyrdom — how  hard  and  bitter 
let  the  martyr  say.  Shame  to  those  who  make  it 
doubly  so  !  honour  to  those  who  encounter  it,  saddened, 
weeping,  trembling,  but  unflinching  still !" 

Thus  far  then  we  are  all  of  one  mind — we  Christians 
of  this  present  age,  and  these  our  contemporaries,  who 
denounce  our  belief  as  absurd,  and  they,  the  martyrs  of 
the  early  time,  who  ascertained  the  same  moral  rule, 
and,  for  our  use,  sealed  it  with  their  blood.  We,  be- 
lievers and  unbelievers,  hold  it  as  a  fixed  principle,  as 
did  the  martyrs  of  old,  that  if  we  lie  to  God,  we  consign 
ourselves  to  perdition,  or  to  some  unknown  future  woe, 
we  know  not  what. 

Yet  there  is  this  difference  among  us,  and  it  has  an 
ominous  aspect. 

We  Christian  men  of  this  age,  along  with  our  venera- 
ted martyr  brethren  of  the  ancient  Church,  in  making 
this  profession — That  we  may  not  lie  to  God,  nor  deny 
before  men  our  inward  conviction  in  matters  of  religion  ; 
we  (as  they  did)  affirm  that  which  is  consistent  within 
itself,  and  which,  in  the  whole  extent  of  its  meaning,  is 
certain  and  is  reasonable,  grant  us  only  our  initial  pos- 
tulate, that  Christianity  is  from  Heaven. 

But  how  is  it  when  this  same  solemn  averment  comes 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  89 

from  the  lips  of  those  who  deny  that  postulate,  and  who 
scorn  to  recognize  the  voice  of  God  in  the  book  ?  It 
is  just  thus ;  and  those  whom  it  concerns  so  to  do,  owe 
it  to  the  world  and  to  themselves,  to  make  the  ingenious 
avowal. 

In  the  first  place,  the  style,  and  the  very  terms  em- 
ployed by  these  writers,  in  enouncing  the  fact  of  the 
martyrdom  they  are  undergoing,  are  all  a  flagrant 
plagiarism,  and  nothing  better  !  A  claim,  in  behalf 
of  the  Gospel,  must  be  made  of  what  is  its  own,  and 
which  these  writers,  without  leave  asked,  have  appro- 
priated. As  to  every  word  and  phrase  upon  which  the 
significance  of  this  their  profession  turns,  it  must  be 
given  up,  leaving  them  in  possession  of  so  much  only 
of  the  meaning  of  such  phrases  as  would  have  been 
intelligible  to  Plutarch,  to  Porphery,  and  to  M. 
AuRELius.  A  surrender  must  be  made  of  the  words 
Conscience,  and  Truth,  and  Righteousness,  and  Sin; 
and,  alas  !  modern  unbelievers  must  be  challenged  to 
give  me  back  that  one  awe-fraught  Name  which  they 
(must  I  not  plainly  say  so  ?)  have  stolen  out  of  the  book: 
when  they  have  frankly  made  this  large  surrender,  we 
may  return  to  them  the  to  Qslov  of  classical  antiquity. 

Yet  this  plagiarism,  as  to  terms,  is  the  smaller  part  of 
that  invasion  of  rights  with  which  the  same  persons  are 
chargeable.  It  is  reasonable,  and  it  is  what  a  good  man 
must  do,  to  sufi'er  any  thing,  rather  than  deny  a  persua- 
sion which  is  such  that  he  could  not,  if  he  would,  cast  it 
ofi".  So  it  was  with  the  early  Christian  martyrs  :  their 
persuasion  of  the  truth  of  the  Gospel  had  become  part 
of  themselves  ;  it  was  faith  absolute,  in  the  fullest  sense 
of  the  word.     The  same  degree  of  irresistible  persuasion 

8* 


^0  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

attaches  to  the  conclusions  of  mathematical  or  physical 
science;  but  it  never  can  belong  to  an  opinion,  or  to  an 
undefined  abstract  belief.  A  man  may,  indeed,  choose 
to  die  rather  than  contradict  his  personal  persuasion  of 
the  truth  of  an  opinion  ;  but  in  doing  so  he  has  no  right 
to  take  to  himself  the  martyr's  style.  So  to  speak  is 
to  exhibit,  not  constancy,  but  opiniativeness,  or  an  over- 
weening confidence  in  his  own  reasoning  faculty. 

Polycarp  could  not  have  refused  to  die  when  the  only 
alternative  was  to  blaspheme  Christ,  his  Lord :  but 
Plutarch  could  not  have  been  required  to  suffer  in  attes- 
tation of  his  oi)inion — good  as  it  was — that  the  Poets 
have  done  ill  in  attributing  the  passions  and  perturba- 
tions of  human  nature  to  the  immortal  gods ;  nor 
Seneca,  in  behalf  of  those  astronomical  and  meteorolo- 
gical theories  with  which  he  entertains  himself  and  his 
friend  Lucilius. 

When  those  who,  after  rejecting  Christianity,  talk  of 
suffering  for  the  "  truth  of  God,"  and  speak  as  if  they 
were  conscience-bound  "  toward  God,"  they  must  know 
that  they  not  only  borrow  a  language  wliich  they  are 
not  entitled  to  avail  themselves  of,  but  that  they  invade 
a  ground  of  religious  belief  whereon  they  can  establish 
for  themselves  no  right  of  standing.  They  may  indeed 
profess  what  opinion  they  please,  as  to  the  Divine 
Attributes ;  but  they  cannot  need  to  be  told  that  which 
the  misgivings  of  their  own  hearts  so  often  whisper  to 
them,  that  all  such  opinions  are,  at  the  very  best,  open 
to  debate,  and  must  always  be  indeterminate,  and  that 
at  this  time  their  own  possession  of  the  opinion  which 
just  now  they  happen  to  cling  to,  is,  in  the  last  degree, 
precarious.     How,  then,  can  martyrdom  be  transacted 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  91 

among  those  whose  treading  is  upon  the  fleecy  clouds 
of  undemonstrable  religious  feeling  ? 

Educated  men  should  not  wait  to  be  reminded  that 
those  who,  after  abandoning  a  peremptory  historic 
Belief,  endeavor  to  retain  Faith  and  Piety  for  their 
comfort,  stand  upon  a  slope  that  has  no  ledges :  Athe- 
ism in  its  simplest  form  yawns  to  receive  those  who 
there  stand ;  and  they  know  themselves  to  be  gravita- 
ting toward  it. 

It  would  be  far  more  reasonable  for  a  man  to 
die  as  a  martyr  for  Atheism — a  stage  beyond  which 
no  further  progress  is  possible,  than  to  do  so  at 
any  point  short  of  that  terminus,  knowing  as  he 
does  that  every  day  is  bringing  him  nearer  to  the 
gulph.  The  stronger  the  mind  is,  and  the  more  it 
has  of  intellectual  massiveness,  the  more  rapid  will 
be  its  descent  upon  this  declivity.  Minds  of  little 
density,  and  of  much  airy  sentiment,  may  stay  long 
where  they  are,  just  as  gnats  and  flies  walk  to  and  fro 
upon  the  honied  sides  of  a  china  vase ;  they  do  not  go 
down,  but  never  again  will  they  fly. 


Through  a  strange  misapprehension  of  the  pre- 
sent tendency  of  things,  within  the  commonwealth  of 
Philosophy,  those  who  are  struggling  to  save  the 
Pietism  of  Disbelief  have  made  allusion  to  the 
progress  of  the  Sciences,  as  threatening  the  imme- 
diate destruction  of  Christianity.  We  are  told  that 
our  obsolete  Creed  will  be  rent  from  us  by  the  Phy- 
sical sciences,  as  they  advance. 

A  wonderful  miscalculation  it  is  that  has  led  astray 
those  who  thus  think,  and  thus  speak.  The  modern 
Physical  sciences.  Astronomy,  Geology,  Physiology, 
have  indeed  availed  to  dispel  from  Christian  Belief 
this  or  that  superstition,  the  demolition  of  which  has 
occasioned  pain  to  minds  of  a  certain  class,  and  has 
spread  alarm  among  many ;  but  the  issue  will  be  wholly 
good  and  confirmatory.  I  hope  hereafter  to  show  you 
on  what  ground  I  think  so ;  and  I  do  not  wish  it  to 
be  supposed  that  I  am  either  unmindful  of  the  diffi- 
culties that  have  had  their  origin  in  this  quarter,  or 
that  I  am  intending  to  evade  the  consideration  of  them. 
But  whatever  damage  science  may  do  to  Christianity, 
its  operation  (so  marvellously  forgotten  by  the  writers 
in  question)  will  be,  not  to  damage,  but  to  put  right 
out  of  existence  every  form  and  phase  of  those  Pietistic 
notions  which  it  may  have  been  thought  possible  to 
retain  when  Christianity  is  gone.  The  fate  of  all  those 
(92) 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF.         93 

Varieties  of  sentimental   doctrine  is  already  sealed — it 
is  sealed  by  the  hand  of  our  modern  Physical  sciences  ! 
How  and  why  this   should  be  taking  place  has   not, 
I  think,  been  understood ;  and  I  invite  attention  to  it. 
In  any  case  when  that    which    on    any   ground    of 
proof  takes  full  hold  of  the  understanding,  (such,  for 
example,  are   the   most   certain  of  the  conclusions  of 
Geology,)  stands  contiguous  to   that  which,  in  a  logical 
sense,  is  of  inferior  quality,  and  is  indeterminate,  and 
fluctuating,  and  liable  to  retrogression, — in   any  such 
ease  there  is   always  going  on   a  silent  encroachment 
of  the  more  solid  mass  upon  the  ground  of  that  which 
is   less   solid.     What   is  SURE  will   be   pressing  upon 
what  is  uncertain,  whether  or  not    the    two    are    de- 
signedly brought  into  collision   or   comparison.     What 
is  well  defined  weighs  upon,  and  against,  what  is  ill 
defined.       Nothing   stops    the    continuous    involuntary 
operation  of  science,  in  dislodging  opinion  from  the 
minds  of  those  who  are  conversant  with  both. 

A  very  small  matter  that  is  indeed  determinate, 
will  be  able  to  keep  a  place  for  itself  against  this 
incessantly  encroaching  movement ;  but  nothing  else 
can  do  so.  As  to  any  of  those  theosophic  fancies, 
which  we  may  wish  to  cling  to,  after  we  have  thrown 
away  the  Bible,  we  might  as  well  suppose  that  they 
will  resist  the  impact  of  the  Mathematical  and  Physical 
Sciences,  as  imagine  that  the  lichens  of  an  Alpine 
gorge  will  stay  the  slow  descent  of  a  glacier. 

It  is  not  that  these  demonstrable  Sciences  are  likely 
to  be  brought  designedly  into  antagonism  with  the 
theosophics  of  Disbelief.  But  instead  of  this,  these 
sciences  are  now  coming  down  in  one  compact  mass, 


94  THE    RESTORATION   OF   EELIEF. 

upon  all  varieties  of  mere  opinion :  without  noise  are 
they  coming,  yet  certainly,  to  raze  them  from  the 
soil  where  they  grow.  Travelling  in  its  might,  this 
solid  mass  will  scrape  the  surface  over  which  it  trav^els 
quite  bare.  Nor  is  it  merely  the  Mathematical  and 
Physical  Sciences  that  in  this  manner  are  edging 
opinion  out  of  the  intellectual  world  ;  for  in  the  train 
of  these  come  the  Statistical,  the  Economic,  and  the 
Political  sciences,  which  every  day  are  assuming  a 
more  positive  tone  than  heretofore,  and  are  more  ar- 
ticulate than  any  Religious  opinions  can  be,  unless 
sustained  by  evidence  of  the  most  conclusive  sort. 
Deductions  that  are  indisputable — principles  that  have 
a  near  bearing  upon  the  palpable  welfare  of  the  com- 
munity, not  less  than  the  higher  truths  of  philosophy, 
tend  to  disengage  the  mind  from  whatever  does  not 
possess  equal  or  similar  recommendations.  Men  sicken 
of  endless  surmises,  of  guesses,  of  aspirations,  of  im- 
pressions, of  vague  hopes.  Now  it  is  manifest  that 
the  Religious  Disbelief  which  is  at  this  time  oifered 
to  us  in  the  stead  of  Christianity,  neither  does,  nor 
can,  in  the  nature  of  things,  take  possession  of  solid 
ground  whereupon  it  might  establish  and  fortify  itself. 
At  the  very  best  it  is  only  a  pleasing  possibility,  or 
a  probability — a  something  better  than  nothing.  Itself, 
from  a  consciousness  of  its  own  slenderness,  will  be 
glad  to  slip  away,  unnoticed,  from  the  halls  of  science. 
This  process,  sealing  the  fate  of  theosophic  systems 
of  all  sorts,  does  not  indeed  bear  upon  the  masses  of 
the  religious  community.  Happily  it  does  not ;  but 
it  does  bear  upon  the  entire  community  of  well-in- 
structed men ;    and  from  them  the  effect  which  it  pro- 


THE   RESTOKATION   OF   BELIEF.  95 

duces  spreads  itself,  outward  and  downward,  until  a 
paralysing  of  the  religious  sentiment  has  gone  far  and 
wide  ;  and  this  is  what  is  now  taking  place,  and  which 
calls  for  a  fresh  recurrence  to  the  very  substance  of 
Christianity,  as  the  only  means  that  can  be  trusted  to 
for  brinojino;  about  a  Restoration  of  Belief. 

We  must  not  allow  ourselves  to  imagine  that  the 
relative  position  of  Natural  Philosophy  and  of  Re- 
ligious Philosophy  at  all  resembles  what  it  was  at  the 
time  when  Christianity  prevailed  over  philosophy  and 
polytheism  ;  for  the  theories  of  that  age  did  not  stand 
liable  to  any  such  pressure  from  without,  as  that 
which  now  weighs  upon  their  modern  representatives. 
The  Tlieology  of  that  epoch  was  not  less  approvable  to 
reason  than  was  the  Physical  science  of  the  same  time : 
both  were  surmises  only ;  and,  on  the  whole,  fewer 
positive  absurdities  were  comprised  in  the  tlieology  than 
in  the  scie)ice  of  the  times.  The  science  of  antiquity 
could  call  scarcely  any  thing  within  its  compass  certain, 
except  its  geometry  and  its  applicates  ;  nor  was  it  itself 
in  a  progressive  condition :  it  slept  on  its  ground,  and 
was  not  more  likely  to  dislodge  its  neighbour,  the 
Theology  of  the  same  time,  than  one  of  the  pyramids 
is  likely  to  shove  another  into  the  Nile. 

It  is  an  illusion  to  imagine  that  any  scheme  of 
religious  belief  can  now  maintain  itself  in  the  minds 
of  instructed  men,  under  the  enormous  pressure  of  the 
compacted  mass  of  our  modern  sciences.  A  most  mis- 
judging course,  therefore,  have  those  writers  adopted 
who,  of  late,  have  threatened  Christianity  with  ex- 
tinction, which  they  say  is  to  be  effected  by  the  hand 
of  the  Physical  sciences  !     Do  they  not   see  that  there 


96  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

is  a  victim  that  stands  first  to  be  immolated — to  wit, 
their  own  baseless  theology  ? 

But  why  may  not  Christianity  itself  share  this  same 
fate  ?  Is  it  not  itself  an  opinion  ?  This  will  be  the 
end  of  every  one  of  those  modifications  of  Christianity 
which  have  been  devised  for  the  purpose  of  escaping 
from  its  extreme  consequences,  or  of  mitigating  its 
supposed  severity,  or  of  winning  the  favour  of  those 
who  reject  it.  These  varieties  of  what  we  must  call 
an  abated  Christianity,  are  opinions  only ;  and  they 
entirely  lack  intelligible  evidence,  as  well  as  substance 
and  motive  force  :  they  stir  no  afi"ections  ;  they  fix  no 
resolves ;  they  breathe  no  such  energy  into  the  souls 
of  men  as  should  strengthen  them  in  a  course  of  real 
sufferings  for  the  Truth's  sake. 

What  is  it  then  that  may,  and  that  will,  hold  its 
ground  against  the  ever-increasing  momentum  of  our 
modern  philosophy  ?  It  is  that  Christianity,  whole 
and  entire,  which,  filling  as  it  did  the  mind  and  the 
heart  of  the  Early  Church,  carried  it  through  its  day 
of  trial. 

I  now  therefore  reach  the  point  which  I  have  had 
in  view  in  this  preliminary  Tract :  my  piupose  being 
to  explain  my  meaning  in  professing  to  think  that  a 
Restoration  of  Belief,  at  this  time,  demands  that  we 
should  make  our  way  direct  into  the  heart  of  the 
question,  and  reclaim  for  the  Gospel  its  own  grandeur, 
its  own  beauty,  its  own  boundless  compass  of  Truths 
eternal. 

Hitherto  we  have  confined  our  attention  to  the  Mar- 
tyr age  of  Christianity,  and  have  considered  how  the 
men  of   that  time,  while   they   so    "fought    the  good 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  97 

fight  of  faith,"  rendered  a  service  to  the  world,  the 
benefits  of  which  can  never  leave  it.  But  can  any  One 
persuade  himself  that  this  war  could  have  been  waged 
on  the  strength  of  any  of  those  abated  notions  of 
Christianity  which  we  are  now  required  to  accept  in- 
stead of  itself?  We  may  be  sure  it  could  not  have 
been  so  :  we  know  it  was  not  so.  The  faith  of  the 
Martyr  Church  was  undoubting  in  its  quality,  and 
ample  in  its  compass.  The  martyr  confronted  his 
tormentor,  and  welcomed  death,  in  the  perfect  assu- 
rance that  the  Religion  he  professed  was  from  Heaven, 
and  that  it  had  come  into  the  world  attested  by 
Miracles. 

Such  a  persuasion,  we  may  think,  cost  this  martyr 
Ititle ;  for  it  was  an  age  (so  it  is  said)  of  ready  belief. 
Men  believed  on  slender  evidence,  or  on  none.  It  is  of 
no  consequence  to  dispute  this  :  let  it  be  granted.  But 
if  the  credulity  of  the  age  made  it  easy  for  the  Chris- 
tians of  that  time  to  accept  a  religion  professing  mira- 
culous attestations,  this  willingness  to  believe  sprang 
from  a  feeling,  the  vividness  of  which  we,  in  this  ago, 
can  scarcely  imagine.  The  men  of  the  martyr  time 
had  found  in  Christianity  that  which  outmeasured  all 
miracles ;  to  them  the  new  spiritual  existence  which 
they  had  drawn  from  the  Gospel,  was  a  Miracle  with 
which  those  of  the  Evangelic  history  seemed  in  perfect 
accordance.  What  they  felt  in  themselves,  and  saw  in 
others,  of  the  power  of  the  Gospel,  was  to  them  a  re- 
surrection, equivalent  to  the  miraculous  healing  of  the 
sick,  or  raising  of  the  dead. 

But  is  it  not  "reasoning  in  a  circle"  thus  to  believe 
the  miracles  because   the  religion  is  felt    to  be  from 

9 


98  THE  restohation  of  belief. 

Heaven,  and  to  believe  the  religion,  because  it  has 
been  attested  by  miracles  ?  Grant  it  that  this  is  a 
reasoning  in  a  circle,  wlien  formally  stated ;  but  it 
does  not  follow  that  the  reasoning  is  not  good  in 
its  substance.  A  misapprehension  on  this  ground  has 
too  easily  been  admitted,  as  well  on  the  side  of  those 
Avho  have  conducted  the  Christian  argument,  as  with 
those  who  have  impugned  it.  A  sophism,  boldly  ob- 
truded on  the  one  side,  has  been  timidly  dealt  with  on 
the  other. 

The  very  firmest  of  our  convictions  come  to  us  in 
this  very  same  mode, — that  is,  not  in  the  way  of  a 
sequence  of  evidences,  following  each  other  as  links  in  a 
chain,  and  carrying  with  them  the  conclusion ;  but  in 
the  way  of  the  conoeuity  of  evidences,  meeting  or 
collapsing  in  the  conclusion.  This  is  not  what  is  called 
"  cumulative  proof,"  nor  is  it  proof  derived  from  the 
coincidence  of  facts.  Those  impressions  which  com- 
mand the  reason  and  the  feelings  in  the  most  impera- 
tive manner,  and  which  we  find  it  impossible  to  resist, 
are  the  result  of  the  meeting  of  congruous  elements : 
they  are  the  product  of  causes  which,  though  indepen- 
dent, are  felt  so  to  fit  the  one  the  other,  that  each,  as 
soon  as  seen  in  combination,  authenticates  the  other; 
and  in  allowing  the  two  to  carry  our  convictions,  we  are 
not  yielding  to  the  sophism  which  consists  in  alter- 
nately putting  the  premises  in  the  place  of  each  other, 
but  are  recognizing  a  principle  which  is  true  in  human 
nature. 

You  have  to  do  with  one  who  offers  to  your  eye  his 
credentials — his  diploma,  duly  signed  and  sealed,  and 
which  declare  him  to  be   a  Personage  of  the  highest 


THE   EESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  99 

rank.  All  seems  genuine  in  these  evidences.  At  the 
same  time  the  style  and  tone,  the  air  and  behaviour,  of 
this  Personage,  and  all  that  he  says,  and  what  he 
informs  you  of,  and  the  instructions  he  gives  you,  are  in 
every  respect  consistent  with  his  pretensions,  as  set 
forth  in  the  Instrument  he  brings  with  him.  It  is  not 
then  that  you  alternately  believe  his  credentials  to  be 
genuine,  because  his  deportment  and  his  language  are 
becoming  to  his  alleged  rank ;  and  then  that  you  yield 
^0  the  impression  which  has  been  made  upon  your  feel- 
ings by  his  deportment,  because  you  have  admitted 
the  credentials  to  be  true.  Your  belief  is  the  product 
of  a  simultaneous  accordance  of  the  two  species  of 
proof:  it  is  a  combined  force  that  carries  conviction, 
not  a  succession  of  proofs  in  line. 

It  is  from  the  same  force  of  Congruity,  not  from  a 
catena  of  proofs,  that  we  receive  the  most  trustworthy 
of  those  impressions  upon  the  strength  of  which  we  act 
in  the  daily  occasions  of  life ;  and  the  same  Law  of 
Belief  rules  us  also  in  the  highest  of  all  arguments — 
that  which  issues  in  a  devout  regard  to  Him,  by  and 
through  whom  are  all  things.  On  this  ground,  where 
logic  halts,  an  instinctive  reasoning  prevails,  which 
takes  its  force  from  the  confluence  of  reasons. 

I  have  asked  it  to  be  supposed  that  all  we  can  now 
know  of  Christianity  must  be  derived  from  the  literary 
materials  of  the  second  and  third  centuries.  We  now 
go  back  to  those  materials.  They  are  various,  if  not 
of  very  great  absolute  bulk :  they  include  contributions 
from  the  pens  of  fifty  or  sixty  writers,  some  of  these 
being  voluminous,  some  amounting  to  fragments  only, 
or  paragraphs  or  sentences :  but   then  they  are  Contri- 


100  THE    RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

butions  gathered  from  all  quarters  of  the  Roman 
World.  These  remains  bring  to  our  hearing,  as  we 
might  say,  the  voices  of  the  dwellers  in  Palestine,  Asia 
Minor,  Egypt,  North  Africa,  Gaul,  Italy,  and  Greece ; 
what  we  listen  to  is  a  testimony  coming  in  from  a  large 
surface.  These  variously  derived  materials  constitute 
so  many  segments  of  a  great  circle,  the  centre  of 
which  they  will  enable  us  to  determine,  if  we  rightly 
bring  them  to  their  places:  the  radii,  projected  from 
these  segments,  meet  in  a  central  point. 

A  striking  unanimity  of  feeling  pervades  the  mass ; 
and  yet  along  with  much  diversity  of  style,  the  temper 
of  the  men  also  being  every  where  conspicuous,  as  well 
as  the  characteristics  of  country.  The  subjects  treated 
of  are  various  also.  Nevertheless,  as  to  the  central 
OBJECT  of  which  these  materials  give  us  our  idea,  the 
uniformity — the  Identity  of  Image  is  such,  and  it  is 
of  such  intensity,  that  it  moulds  to  its  own  fashion  the 
mind  of  every  ingenuous  reader  :  he  cannot  refuse  to 
yield  his  reason  and  imagination  too,  to  this  ONE  idea  : 
undoubtedly  it  is  every  Avhere  the  same  person  Avhom 
he  encouiiters  in  these  scattered  memorials  of  a  distant 
time ! 

One  of  the  purposes  I  have  had  in  view  in  thus 
bringing  forward  the  persons  and  events  of  the  Martyr 
age,  and  in  keeping  the  eye  fixed  upon  that  limited 
field,  was  this,  to  render  more  easy  a  mental  effort  by 
which  we  put  out  of  sight  the  bearing  of  Christianity 
upon  ourselves,  and  discharge  from  our  feelings,  that 
which  haunts  our  minds,  the  thought  that  it  may  touch 
and  disturb  ourselves. 

In   now  summing   up,  I  entreat   you  to  make  this 


THE   RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  101 

effort,  and  to  imagine  that  Christianity  has  long  ago 
ceased  to  hold  any  place  of  influence  in  the  world ; 
and  that  it  stands  before  us  only  as  a  singular  develop- 
ment of  the  religious  and  moral  elements  of  human 
nature,  which  has  had  its  season,  and  which  now  stands 
on  record,  an  insulated  object  of  historic  curiosity.  If 
now  you  will  go  with  me  so  far,  ingenuously  grant  such 
things  as  you  would  not  think  of  denying,  if  relieved 
from  all  anxiety  as  to  consequences,  touching  our- 
selves. I  will  therefore  suppose  you  to  allow  these 
things. — 

— That  the  Christian  communities  did,  durincr  the 
period  that  we  have  had  in  view,  make  and  maintain 
a  protest  against  the  idol-worship  of  the  times,  which 
protest,  severe  as  it  was  in  its  conditions,  at  length  won 
a  place  in  the  world  for  a  purer  Theology,  and  set  the 
civilized  races  free  from  the  degrading  superstitions  of 
the  Greek  Mythology. 

— That  in  the  course  of  this  arduous  struggle,  and 
as  an  unobserved  yet  inevitable  consequence  of  it,  a 
New  Principle  came  to  be  recognized,  and  a  New  Feel- 
ing came  to  govern  the  minds  of  men,  which  principle 
and  feeling  conferred  upon  the  individual  man,  how- 
ever low  his  rank,  socially  or  intellectually,  a  dignity, 
unknown  to  classical  antiquity  ;  aud  which  yet  must  be 
the  bases  of  every  moral  advancement  we  can  desire, 
or  think  of  as  possible. 

— That  the  struggle  whence  resulted  these  two  mo- 
mentous consequences,  affecting  the  welfare  of  men  for 
ever,  was  entered  upon  and  maintained  on  the  ground 
of  a  definite  persuasion,  or  Belief,  of  which  a  PERSOisr 
was  the  object. 


J* 


102         TnE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF. 

— That  this  belief  toward  a  Person,  embracorl  attri- 
butes, not  only  of  superhuman  excellence  and  wisdom, 
but  also  of  superhuman  power  and  authority.  If  wo 
take  the  materials  before  us  as  our  guide,  it  will  not  be 
possible  to  disengage  the  history  from  these  ideas  of 
superhuman  dignity. 

If  in  any  instance  that  can  be  thought  parallel,  the 
concentric  testimony  of  many  writers  conveys  the  idea 
of  a  clearly-defined  Individuality,  such  an  idea,  such  a 
conception  of  a  Person,  real,  and  unlike  others,  is  con- 
veyed by  the  evidence  now  in  our  hands  ;  and  this  idea 
indissolubly  blends  the  Jdstoric  and  the  supernatural ; 
the  two  elements  of  character,  as  combined,  possess  a 
FORCE  OF  CONGRUITY  which  compels  our  submission  to 
it.  Whence  then  came  this  Idea  ?  We  find  it  on  the 
pages  of  the  early  Christian  writers  in  a  form  so  con- 
sentient, and  it  is  conveyed  in  language  so  sedate  and 
so  uniform,  that  we  must  believe  it  to  have  had  one 
source. 

Much  do  we  meet  with  in  these  writers  that  indicates 
infirmity  of  judgment  or  a  false  taste ;  yet  does  there 
pervade  them  a  marked  simplicity,  a  grave  sincerity,  a 
quietness  of  tone,  when  He  is  spoken  of  whom  they 
acknowledge  us  Lord.  If  there  be  one  characteristic 
of  these  ancient  writings  that  is  uniform,  it  is  the 
calm,  affectionate,  reverential  tone  in  which  the  Martyr 
Church  speaks  of  The  Saviour  Christ  ! 

I  am  perfectly  sure  that,  if  you  could  absolutely 
banish  from  your  mind  all  thought  of  the  inferences, 
and  the  consequences,  resulting  from  your  admissions, 
you  would  not,  after  perusing  this  body  of  Martyr-lite- 
rature, full  into  the  enormity  of  attributing  the  notions 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  103 

entertained  of  Christ,  as  invested  with  Divine  attri- 
butes, to  any  such  source  as  "exaggeration,"  or  "ex- 
travagance," or  to  "  orientalism,"  or  "enlarged  Pla- 
tonism."  Exaggeration  and  inflation  have  their  own 
style :  it  is  not  difficult  to  recognize  it.  No  character- 
istic of  thought  or  language  is  more  obvious.  You  will 
fail  in  your  endeavour  to  show  that  this  characteristic 
does  attach  to  the  writings  in  question :  and  why  should 
you  make  such  an  attempt  ?  There  can  be  no  induce- 
ment to  do  so,  unless  it  appears  to  be  the  only  means 
of  escaping  from  some  consequence  which  we  dislike. 

But  how  can  it  be  that  a  resumption  of  the  infcrenco 
which  Christianity  brings  to  bear  upon  ourselves,  should 
aff"ect  the  admissions  we  have  made  while  that  inference 
was  held  in  abeyance  ?  It  can  never  be  logical  to  say, 
"  I  would  not  have  granted  you  so  much,  if  I  had  fore- 
seen what  use  you  would  have  made  of  my  conces- 
sions." We  must  abide  by  our  concessions,  if  they 
have  been  reasonably  granted,  come  what  may. 

That  which  these  concessions  involve  is  this,  that 
unless  we  at  once  allow  the  Supernatural  and  the 
Divine  to  have  belonged  to  Christianity  at  its  rise, 
our  alternative  is  to  fill  up  the  void  by  aid  of  some 
hypothesis  which  shall  give  an  intelligible  account  of 
what  we  know  to  have  followed,  wherever  it  was  pro- 
claimed throughout  the  Roman  world.  As  to  any  such 
hypothesis  (several  have  been  devised)  I  will  not  call 
them  inadmissible,  or  insufficient ;  for  to  me  they  are 
wholly  unintelligible. 

Unintelligible  are  these  hypotheses,  even  when  looked 
at  in  the  coldest  manner  from  the  ground  of  historical 
criticism.     But  how  revolting  do  they  seem  when  the 


104  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

course  of  events  through  the  lapse  of  centuries,  is  re 
garded  in  any  manner  that  might  deserve  to  be  called 
philosophic  ! 

The  dark  mysteries  that  attach  to  the  course  of 
human  affairs,  who  shall  profess  to  interpret  ?  No  one 
undertakes  such  an  office.  Nevertheless  we  may  trace 
single  lines  of  causation  with  perfect  certainty :  we  may 
follow  a  clue  up  from  Effects  to  Causes,  and  we  may 
discover  causes  which,  in  their  quality  and  their  effi- 
ciency are  such  as  the  effect  demands.  We  may  safely 
reject,  as  by  instinct,  an  hypothesis  which  assumes  to 
trace  great  and  extensive  effects  to  causes  that  would 
be  not  merely  insufficient,  but  which  are  utterly  incon- 
gruous and  unfit. 

Remove  from  Christianity  every  thing  in  it  which  is 
supernatural  and  divine,  and  then  the  problem  which 
we  have  to  do  with  is  this. — A  revolution  in  human 
affairs,  in  the  highest  degree  beneficial  in  its  import, 
was  carried  forward  upon  the  arena  of  the  great  world, 
by  means  of  the  noble  behaviour  of  men  who  command 
our  sympathy  and  admiration,  as  brave,  wise,  and  good. 
But  this  revolution  drew  the  whole  of  its  moral  force 
from  a  Belief,  which — how  shall  we  designate  it  ? — was 
in  part  an  inexplicable  illusion  ;  in  part  a  dream,  and 
in  large  part  a  fraud !  This,  the  greatest  forward 
movement  which  the  civilized  branches  of  the  human 
family  have  ever  made,  took  its  rise  in  bewildered 
Jewish  brains  !  Indestructible  elements  of  advance- 
ment to  which  even  infidel  nations  confessedly  owe 
whatever  is  best  and  most  hopeful  within  them,  these 
elements  of  good,  which  were  obtained  for  us  at  so 
vast  a  cost,  had  their  source  in  a  congeries  of  exaggera- 


TUB   RESTORATION  "OF   BELIEF.  105 

tlons,  and  In  a  mindless  conspiracy,  hatched  by  chance, 
nursed  by  imposture,  and  winged  by  fanaticism  ! 

While  I  must  speak  of  the  Theories  that  have  been 
propounded  for  solving  the  problena  of  Christianity,  on 
natural  principles,  in  no  measured  terms,  I  would  not 
be  thought  disposed  to  treat  slightly  the  catalogue  of 
difficulties  that  attach  to  the  Christian  argument,  at 
specific  points.  Real  are  some  of  these  difficulties ; 
and  some  are  fatal  to  certain  gratuitous  assumptions, 
held  to  on  the  Christian  side :  not  one  of  them  should 
be  inconsiderately  dismissed.  But  not  one  of  them 
touches  the  Integrity  of  our  Faith ;  nor  can  the  mass 
entire  avail  at  all  to  abate  the  confidence  of  our  per- 
suasion, that  the  Gospel  of  Christ  is  from  Heaven, 
and  carries  with  it  an  authority  which  time  does  not 
impair,  and  which  Eternity  shall  unfold  and  confirm. 

When  a  collection  of  historic  materials,  bearing  upon 
a  particular  series  of  events,  is  brought  forward,  it  will 
follow  upon  the  supposition  that  those  events  have,  on 
the  whole,  been  truly  reported,  that  any  hypothesis  the 
object  of  which  is  to  make  it  seem  probable  that  no 
such  events  did  take  place,  must  involve  absurdities, 
which  will  be  more  or  less  glaring.  But  then,  after 
the  truth  of  the  history  has  been  established,  and  when 
the  trustworthiness  of  the  materials  has  been  admitted, 
as  we  proceed  to  apply  a  rigid  criticism  to  ambiguous 
passages,  we  shall  undoubtedly  encounter  a  crowd  of 
perplexing  disagreements ;  and  we  shall  find  employ- 
ment enough  for  all  our  acumen,  and  trial  enough  of 
our  patience,  in  clearing  our  path.  And  yet  no  amount 
of  discouragements,  such  as  these,  will  warrant  our 
falling  back  upon  a  supposition  which  we  have  already 
discarded  as  incKerent  f^T^f^  ^     rd. 


106  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

This  then  is  the  present  state  of  the  argument  as  to 
Christianity.  As  to  those  inroads  which  of  late  have 
been  made  upon  the  Belief  of  well-informed  Christians, 
they  have  been  effected  by  urging  exceptive  cases,  and 
by  bringing  forward  instances  of  historic  misplacement, 
or  contradiction,  affecting  the  credit  of  the  Inspired 
writers,  or  by  inference,  bringing  into  question  the 
Divine  authority  of  the  collection  of  books.  On  tltis 
ground  the  course  that  should  be  taken,  though  it  be 
arduous,  is  straight  before  us. 

To  propound  difficulties  pressing  upon  a  Christian 
belief,  is  one  thing;  but  to  propose  a  theory  that 
might  be  accepted  as  affording  an  intelligible  solution 
of  the  problem  which  demands  to  be  dealt  with,  when 
we  disallow  the  claims  of  Christianity  as  from  Heaven, 
is  a  very  different  matter.  On  this  ground,  I  do  not 
see  that  any  advantage  has  been  gained  on  the  side  of 
Disbelief.  Our  English  disbelief  can  pretend  to  nothing 
of  originality ;  for  it  is  all  a  copy  after  the  German ; 
and  yet  German  theories,  though  they  have  broken 
down,  in  quick  succession,  at  home,  have  been  im- 
ported, as  if  still  good,  and  have  been  done  into  English 
without  a  scruple :  is  there  one  of  these  theories  that 
is  not  insufferably  absurd  ? 

This  is  as  it  should  be,  on  the  supposition.  That 
Christianity  is  true:  the  difficulties  which  adhere  to 
the  mode  of  its  transmission,  may  still  be  insoluble ; 
yet  to  devote  primary  attention  to  these  would  only 
have  the  effect  of  giving  our  thoughts,  as  well  as 
feelings,  a  wrong  direction.  A  better  course  is,  first  to 
assure  ourselves  of  the  substance  of  our  Belief  :  we 
may  then,  with  comfort  and  advantage,  meet  the  ex- 
ceptive argument  in  its  particulars. 


II- 

ON  THE   SUPERNATURAL  ELEMENT   CONTAINED 

IN   THE   EPISTLES,   AND   ITS  BEARING 

ON   THE   ARGUMENT. 


THE  QUESTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY  IS  DETERMINABLE. 

We  are  told  that  Christianity  must  be  content  to 
take  its  place  along  with  many  indeterminate  questions, 
■which  are,  and  which  should  be  spoken  of  among  rea- 
sonable men  as  "matters  of  opinion." 

I  deny  this  allegation  ;  and  I  take  my  position,  with 
all  humility,  yet  fearlessly,  on  this  opposite  ground, 
namely  :  that,  if  those  modes  of  proceeding  which  have 
been  authenticated  as  good  in  other  cases,  are  allowed 
to  take  effect  in  this  case,  nothing  in  the  entire  round 
of  human  belief  is  more  infallibly  sure  than  is  Christ- 
ianity, when  it  claims  to  be — Religion,  given  to  Man 
BY  God. 

The  same  proposition,  stated  exceptively,  may  be 
thus  worded.  Christianity  can  be  held  in  question 
only  by  aid  of  violence  done  to  established  principles 
of  reasoning,  and  by  contempt  of  the  laws  of  evidence, 
which  in  all  cases  analogous  to  this  are  enforced. 

I  must  not  be  misinterpreted  in  this  instance.  Per- 
sonally, I  might  take  in  hand  to  demonstrate  some 
unquestionable  theorem  in  geometry,  or  to  establish 
the  most  certain  of  the  conclusions  in  the  circle  of  the 
physical  sciences  ;  and  I  might  so  mismanage  the  pro- 
cess as  to  make  those  things  seem  doubtful  which,  in 
fact,  are  absolutely  certain.     The  question  just  now,  is 

10  (109) 


110  THE    IIESTOIIATION    OF    BELIEF. 

not  whether  an  individual  writer  succeeds  or  fails  in 
bringing  a  demonstrable  argument  to  a  true  conclusion; 
which  may  happen  or  not ;  but  whether  the  argument 
itself  be  demonstrable  or  not. 

Grant  me  therefore  so  much  liberty  as  this,  at  start- 
ing, that  is  to  say — allow  me  to  fail  in  my  present 
honest  endeavour,  yet  without  prejudice  to  my 
CAUSE.  Grant  me  this,  and  I  will  repay  your  candour 
with  an  equivalent.  I  shall  impute  no  bad  motives  to 
you  as  a  cover  to  my  chagrin  in  finding  that  I  do  not 
bring  you  over  to  my  side :  I  shall  not  tell  you  that 
your  resistance  to  my  reasoning  is  nothing  but  an  im- 
moral obduracy,  springing  from  the  corrupt  wishes  of 
an  "  unregenerate  heart."  It  may  be  so  in  fact ;  but 
that  is  your  affair,  not  mine.  "  Let  a  man  examine 
himself.''  I  am  no  Inquisitor,  nor  Father  Confessor; 
nor  do  I  profess  to  be  a  spiritual  adviser. 

Besides,  I  am  hot  about  to  deal  in  persuasives,  or  to 
be  eloquent  and  ingenious.  I  would  not  lay  a  hand 
upon  this  argument  at  all  if  I  did  not  find  it  hard  to 
the  touch,  in  every  part  of  it. 

We  all  perfectly  know  that  the  only  style  proper  to 
the  exposition  of  absolute  Truth  is  that  which  indicates 
no  consciousness  whatever  of  the  surmised  dispositions, 
or  adverse  feelings,  or  prejudices,  of  those  who  are  ad- 
dressed. Euclid  deals  with  every  body  alike  :  he  knows 
nothing  of  men's  tempers.  It  is  thus  that,  in  working 
our  way  toward  the  mere  truth  of  any  mass  of  facts, 
debated  in  Court,  we  listen  with  breathless  attention, 
as  if  an  inspired  person  were  about  to  speak,  to  the 
evidence  of  an  intelligent  and  guileless  child;  for  we 
suppose  that  this  child  does  not  know,  or  knowing,  docs 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF.        Ill 

rot  care,  how  his  statement  will  tell  upon  the  suit,  or 
how  it  may  gratify,  or  irritate,  or  appal,  the  plaintiff, 
or  the  defendant.  This  child-testimony  is  just  the 
normal  style  of  a  purely  scientific  treatise ;  and  it 
should  serve  as  sampler  to  an  argument  that  is  pro- 
fessed to  be  thoroughly  honest. 

A  style  much  less  inartificial  than  this  has  prevailed, 
on  both  sides,  in  the  argument  concerning  Christianity. 
How  this    has    come  about   on   the  side  of  Disbelief, 
it  does  not  concern  me  to  inquire.     On  the  side  of 
Belief  it  has  had  entrance  in  such  ways  as  these : — 
Perhaps  a  writer  who  himself  is  sincerely,  rather  than 
perfectly  persuaded,  labours,  from  page  to  page,  under 
the  weight  of  a  lurking  uneasiness  or  misgiving,  as  to 
the  goodness  of  the  cause  he  has  taken  in  hand.     Or 
perhaps  his  amiable  temper  and  his  abhorrence  of  dog- 
matism, impel  him  to  employ   so  many  softnesses  of 
language,   and  to  abound  so  much  in  uncalled-for  con- 
cessions, that  the  reader  loses  hold  of  an  argument  of 
which  the  writer  is  continually  losing  his  hold.     Per- 
liaps — and  this  is  -often  the  fact — the  Christian  advo- 
cate, being   also   a  minister  of  religion,   and   in    that 
capacity  having  much  to  do,  from  week  to  week,  with 
the  levity  of  the  human  mind,  and  its  perversity,  its 
indifference,    and    its   obduracy,   and  thus  forecasting 
the  rejection  of  his  argument — unimpeachable  as  it  may 
be,  draws  back  from  a  peremptory  statement  of  it,  lest 
he   should   risk  too   much   in  boldly    challenging    the 
reader's  submission.     He  will  not  pledge  Christianity 
where  he  foresees  that  he  shall  find  a  contumacious 
resistance. 

Expect    no  such   gentle  obliquities  in  these  pages. 


112  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

1  am  not  provided  with  slender  conventionalisms  of 
this  kind  : — "  Ought  we  not  to  grant  ?" — "  Is  it  not 
reasonable  to  suppose  ?" — "  Can  we  imagine  this  or 
that?" — "Every  candid  mind  will  allow;"  and  so 
forth.  But  then  if  I  abstain  from  the  use  both  of 
lenitives  and  of  irritating  stimulants,  I  protest  against 
every  sort  of  argumentative  violence,  or  polemical 
outrage.  What  I  mean  by  this  protest  is  this.  We 
are  about  to  make  our  way,  in  company,  through  a 
mansion,  the  doors  of  which,  inner  and  outer,  are 
locked  ;  but  I  carry  a  master-key  in  my  hand.  Every 
door  opens  instantly  by  application  of  these  fair  means. 
You  must  not  then  bring  with  you  a  crow-bar,  or  a 
sledge-hammer ;  as  if  you  would  be  impatient  of  the 
use  of  the  key.  You  must  not  bring  forward,  hy  'pre- 
ference^ a  violent  supposition  to  avert  an  apprehended 
consequence.  Let  the  key  take  its  course  wherever  it 
suffices,  and  I  am  content. 

What  then  are  the  conditions  of  a  proposition  which 
should  be  regarded  as  a  "  matter  of  opinion  ?"  In 
connexion  with  an  argument  like  this,  the  vague  truism 
will  not  serve  us — That  an  "  opinion  is  a  proposition 
concerning  which  even  the  best  informed  men  may 
differ  without  imputation,  either  of  wrong  motives,  or 
of  incompetency."  On  this  ground,  we  need  to  be 
better  guarded  against  misapplications  of  the  word. 

A  proposition  concerning  facts  may  be  indetermi- 
nable in  consequence  of  some  hopeless  deficiency  of  the 
extant  evidence  which  relates  to  it ;  or  there  may 
attach  to  it  an  ambiguity  in  consequence  of  the  occult 
quality  of  the  facts  in  question.  But  these  indeter- 
minate propositions,  fairly  assignable,  to  the  region  of 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF.  113 

cpmion,  and  -wlilch  are  open  therefore  to  endless  dis- 
cussion, may  belong  to  one,  as  well  as  to  another  of  the 
departments  of  science,  of  philosophy,  or  of  criticism. 
It  is  a  mistake,  and  a  prejudice,  fertile  in  errors,  to 
imagine  that  Opinion  belongs  to  one  department,  and 
Certainty  to  other  departments ;  as  if  the  honours 
and  immunities  of  an  exemption  from  the  tolls  of  con- 
troversy were  the  class  privilege  of  this  or  that  aristo- 
cratic science. 

Every  science,  how  absolute  soever  it  may  be  in  its 
methods  of  proof,  has  its  indeterminate  verge — its  open 
territory  of  opinion,  so  long  as  it  is  in  a  progressive 
condition.  Until  a  science  pronounces  itself  to  have 
reached  its  culminating  point,  there  is  always  stretch- 
ing out  in  front  of  it  a  region  over  which  adventurous 
speculation  takes  its  course,  and  whereupon  no  au- 
thority better  than  that  of  opinion  has  as  yet  been 
recognized. 

Mathematical  Science,  we  are  told,  is  still  in 
progress,  and,  therefore,  over  this  region,  even  over 
this,  or  rather  in  front  of  it,  there  hovers  the  "pillar 
of  a  cloud" — a  cloud  of  promise,  leading  the  way  over 
the  sands  of  the  infinite,  toward  further  conquests. 

As  to  the  Physical  Sciences,  if  what  has  been 
ascertained  within  their  compass  would  fill  twenty 
folios — the  matters  next  outlying  beyond  these,  and 
which  yet  are  sufficiently  defined  to  be  susceptible  of 
intelligible  statement,  would  fill  a  hundred  folios. 

As  to  those  branches  of  science,  or  of  criticism,  the 
bearing  of  which  is  upon  Individual  Facts,  and  which 
deal  Avith  Evidence — no  greater  error  could  be  fallen 
into  than  that  of  supposing  that,  in  any  special  sense, 

10* 


114        THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF. 

we  are  here  entering  upon  the  trackless  region  of 
opinion.  In  truth,  as  to  the  relative  amount  of  the 
certain  and  the  uncertain — of  the  determinate  and 
the  indeterminate — of  that  which  is  open  to  discussion, 
or  is  closed  against  it,  and  sealed  for  ever,  as  infallibly 
sure,  those  departments  upon  "which  evidence  (in  the 
technical  sense  of  the  word)  bears,  show  a  decisive  ad- 
vantage, as  compared  with  the  boundless  domains  of 
the  phj'sical  sciences.  It  is  so  on  two  grounds  : — 
First,  as  to  the  nature  of  the  subjects  respectively 
treated  of;  and  secondly,  as  to  the  symbols,  or  medium 
of  conveyance,  from  mind  to  mind. 

The  Physical  Sciences,  as  they  relate  to  the  powers, 
properties,  functions,  of  the  material  world,  inorganic 
and  organised,  touch  the  mere  surface  of  an  abyss  that 
is  unfathomable.  The  things  concerning  which  they 
treat  are,  more  or  less,  occult,  and,  for  a  great  part, 
are  inscrutable,  as  well  by  the  human  senses,  as  by 
human  reason.  Besides  which,  these  sciences  are  com- 
pelled to  express  themselves  in  a  medium  which  has 
been  borrowed  for  their  use,  and  which  is  very  im- 
perfectly adapted  to  the  purposes  it  is  now  made  to 
serve. 

Mathematical  Science  has  created  its  own  symbols, 
as  fast,  and  as  far,  as  it  has  needed  them  :  they  are 
exempt  from  all  ambiguity ;  and  the  truths  conveyed 
by  them  are  not  attempted  to  be  expressed  any  further 
than  they  are  thoroughly  understood. 

Parallel  advantages  attach  to  the  various  departments 
over  which  evidence  holds  sway ;  for  the  facts,  with 
few  exceptions,  are  thoroughly  intelligible,  and  the 
medium  of  conveyance — the  language  of  common  life, 


THE  HESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  115 

has  itself  grown  out  of,  or  is  the  spontaneous  product 
of  this  very  class  of  facts.  Language  is  at  home  when  it 
is  framed  into  propositions,  concerning  individual  facts, 
sustained  by  evidence ;  but  it  is  doing  a  work  wholly 
strange  to  itself  when  it  is  giving  expression  to  the  gen- 
eralizations of  Physical  Science. 

So  long  as  the  Latin  language  lives,  it  will  always  be 
perfectly  known  what  sort  of  event  was  intended  to  be 
recorded  when  an  accomplished  nephew  affirms,  concern- 
ing his  learned  uncle,  that — Innitcns  servulis  duobus, 
assurrexit,  et  statim  concidit :  but  when  we  turn  to 
tkose  of  this  learned  writer's  pages  in  which  he  tries 
his  hand  at  the  scientific  explication  of  natural  pheno- 
mena, as  of  thunder  storms  (ii.  43)  or  when  Seneca  gives 
his  theory  of  earthquakes  (Nat.  Quest,  iv.  5)  we  feel, 
first  that  the  things  spoken  of  by  these  great  men  were 
immensely  far  beyond  their  cognizance ;  and  secondly 
that  the  terms  in  which  they  laboured  to  convey  their 
own  confused  notions  concerning  these  things  are  too 
indeterminate  to  have  admitted,  either  then  or  now,  any 
very  certain  interpretation.  Nor  ought  we  to  assume 
very  much  more  in  behalf  even  of  our  modern  scientific 
speculations ;  for  a  time  may  come  when  a  modern  lec- 
ture, upon — the  theory  of  volcanoes — even  if  the  Eng- 
lish language  should  live  so  long  as  a  thousand  years, 
may  read  like  mere  jargon ;  or  it  may  require  many 
pages  of  learned  exposition  to  be  spent  upon  it,  before 
it  can  be  known  at  all  what  the  writer  could  be  think- 
ing of  when  he  talks  about  "  a  disturbance  of  the  equi- 
librium of  Galvanic  forces,"  and  the  like.  The  narra- 
tive— the  Idstory  is  just  as  intelligible  now,  as  it  was 
eighteen  centuries  ago ;  and  it  will  retain  the  whole  of 


116  THE   HESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

its  bright  vivacity  to  the  end  of  time  ;  so  that  this  one 
entry  upon  the  page  of  universal  history  has  a  better 
chance  for  eternity  than  have  the  pyramids.  But  as  to 
a  large  portion  of  our  modern  Physical  Science — every 
century,  as  it  passes,  overlays  it  with  a  coating  of 
obscurity,  inasmuch  as  the  theories  of  each  era  are 
superseded  by  those  of  the  next ;  and  inasmuch,  too, 
as  the  terms  conveying  it,  having  no  real  relation- 
ship to  the  things  they  intend,  lose  almost  all  hold  of 
those  things  in  the  lapse  of  time,  and  cease  to  be  easily 
intelligible.  In  respect  of  the  events  of  the  Trojan  war 
— whether  the  Iliad  be  history  or  fable,  the  Greek  lan- 
guage carries  a  meaning  that  is  unchangeably  certain, 
for  ever  ;  but  in  respect  of  Aristotle's  astronomy,  or  of 
Plato's  scheme  of  the  universe,  nothing  can  keep  the 
very  terms  in  an  intelligible  condition,  but  a  running 
commentary — re-issued  from  age  to  age. 

Christianity  must  not  then  be  set  off,  to  take  its 
place  among  indeterminate  questions — among  "  matters 
of  opinion,"  merely  because  it  stands  before  us  as  an 
entry  upon  the  page  of  history ;  for  it  stands  there  in 
company  with  things  as  sure  as  the  surest  theorems  of 
geometry.  What  it  teaches — some  of  those  things,  may 
be,  and  are,  matters  of  opinion  ;  but  not  itself. 

You  say  "  Christianity  is  an  exceptive  instance, 
because  it  comes  to  us  laden  with  miracles,  which  no 
evidence  can  avail  to  authenticate ;  and  in  truth  we  are 
granting  it  more  indulgence  than  it  can  rightfully  claim, 
when  we  concede  to  it  any  footing  at  all  upon  the 
ground  of  rational  argumentation.  Let  Christianity  rid 
itself  of  the  supernatural,  and  then  we  will  think  about 
it." 


THE   RESTOKATION   OP  BELIEF.  117 

You  cannot  take  this  course ;  and  my  purpose  in  this 
present  Tract  is  to  close  it  against  you. 

Authentic  history  comes  into  our  hands  along  -with 
a  large  mass  of  adventitious  matter,  which  is  not  of 
itself ;  and  from  which  it  may  easily  be  distinguished 
without  any  damage  to  itself,  or  much  disparagement  to 
the  repute  of  the  original  writers.  Of  this  sort  are 
those  statements  of  alleged  facts  for  the  truth  of  which 
the  historian  does  not  very  explicitly  pledge  himself; 
and  concerning  which  we  may  easily  suppose  him  to 
have  been  innocently  in  error  : — also — of  this  sort  are 
his  own  opinions,  his  reasonings,  and  his  surmises,  which 
are  worth  just  what  they  may  be  worth  : — also  the 
entire  mass  of  indirectly  asseverated  narratives — mat- 
ters of  tradition,  matters  of  national  belief,  or  of  popu- 
lar contemporaneous  parlance. 

Now,  as  to  the  connection  of  all  such  extraneous  mat- 
ters with  authentic  history,  I  apply  to  it,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  my  present  argument,  this  phrase  and  say — the 
tie  between  the  two  masses  is  that  merely  of  adhesion  ; 
for  a  removal  of  the  adhesive  portion  may  be  effected 
without  violence :  it  may  be  done  without  drawing 
blood;  and  as  to  the  historian  himself,  he  will  scarcely 
be  conscious  of  the  operation.  In  how  pleasant  a  man- 
ner have  many  such  removals  been  effected  in  the  in- 
stance of  the  "Father  of  History,"  who,  in  truth,  as  a 
veracious  collector  of  facts,  enjoys  better  repute  among 
us  now,  than  he  did  a  century  ago. 

But  there  is  another  bond  of  union,  connecting  a 
body  of  history  with  what  it  brings  with  it,  which  implies 
more  than  mere  adhesion,  and  which  must  be  regarded 
as  implying  a  connexion  of  COHESION.     Wherever  the 


118        THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF. 

tie  is  of  this  kind,  an  attempted  separation  of  the  two 
masses  touches  the  life,  and  we  should  look  well  to  the 
consequences  before  we  set  about  it.  I  affirm  that,  in 
the  instance  of  the  canonical  documents  of  Christianity, 
the  connection  of  the  historic  mass  with  the  superna- 
tural, is  a  case  of  cohesion,  and  that  it  is  absolutely 
indissoluble. 

When  an  instance  of  this  sort  presents  itself,  one  of 
three  courses  may  be  taken  :  that  is  to  say,  the  three 
courses  are  hypotlieticalhj  eligible ;  which  of  them  is 
actually  so  can  be  known  only  upon  inquiry. 

1st,  We  may  wholly  reject  the  conglomerate — the 
history  and  the  miracle  together,  as  being  manifestly 
destitute  of  any  intrinsic  value. 

2d,  We  may  apply  force— retaining  the  simply  his- 
toric mass,  and  throwing  off  the  mass  cohering.  But 
when  this  is  done  the  patient  dies : — that  is  to  say,  the 
credit  of  the  writer,  or  in  other  words,  his  vitality  as  a 
writer  is  gone,  even  although  much  that  he  has  recorded 
may  still  be  quite  true  :  we  have  slain  the  man ;  but  if 
he  carried  any  thing  about  him  that  is  valuable,  we  take 
it  to  ourselves. 

8d,  We  may  accept  at  once  the  simply  historic  mass, 
and  that  which  coheres  with  it,  as  being  both  true,  and 
both  historic. 

The  course  of  argument,  therefore,  in  relation  to 
Christianity  must  be  this  :  —In  behalf  of  it,  it  should  be 
shown,  first — That  the  alliance  of  the  historical  and  the 
supernatural  which  it  offers  to  our  view  is  not  an  instance 
of  mere  adhesion  ;  but  of  indissoluble  cohesion. 

We  must  then  show  that,  unless  violence  is  to  be  done 
to  every  principle  which  is  applicable  to  the  occasion, 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  Il9 

the  coiifrlomerate  cannot  be  cast  aside,  as  unsubstan- 
tial,  or  as  destitute  of  value  ;  inasmuch  as  the  histori- 
cal portion  is  of  indisputable  validity : — it  is  sure,  if 
any  thing  be  sure. 

But  no  endeavours,  fairly  made,  can  avail  to  disjoin 
the  supernatural,  in  this  case,  from  the  historical.  In 
other  terms  stated — within  the  compass  of  the  canoni- 
cal documents  of  Christianity  the  supernatural  is  one, 
and  the  same  as  the  historical.  The  two  can  be  counted 
two,  by  hypothesis  only.  Moreover  the  two  elements 
— if  they  be  two — coalesce  into  one  mass,  not  merely 
by  cohesion,  of  which  just  now  I  am  to  speak  ;  for  they 
are  still  more  intimately  blended  by  the  force  of  CON- 
GRUITY,  to  which  I  have  already  (page  98)  made  allu- 
sion, and  of  which,  in  another  Tract,  I  shall  have  much 
to  say.  Whether  or  not  the  alleged  cohesion  of  the 
historic  and  the  supernatural  should  be  incontestibly 
established,  the  connexion  of  Congruity,  laying  hold  as 
it  does  of  the  firmest  of  our  convictions,  stands  entire ; 
and  it  is  such  as  has  availed,  and  will  always  avail,  with 
the  mass  of  unsophisticated  minds,  to  ensure  an  un- 
clouded belief. 

The  ground  of  an  argumentation,  such  as  is  now  in 
hand,  has  been  gradually  narrowing  throughout  the 
course  of  the  present  half-century.  It  is  mainly  the  in- 
dustry of  adverse  criticism  that  has  thus  cleared  the  way 
before  us  ;  or  more  fairly  stated,  it  has  been  the  assiduous 
antagonism  of  Christian,  and  of  Anti-christian  scholar- 
ship, wol-king  with  unwearied  zeal  at  the  same  problems, 
that  has  achieved  this  service.  On  the  one  part,  an 
attenuated  ingenuity  has  spent  its  last  atom  of  gluten 
in  floating  out  threads  which  might  perchance   catch 


120  TEE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

and  detain,  in  behalf  of  Scepticism,  this  or  that  portion 
of  the  apostolic  remains.  On  the  other  part,  an  over- 
done scrupulosity,  and  a  superflucms  candour,  has  em- 
ployed itself  in  loosening  the  hold  of  these  films — one 
by  one. 

The  upshot  of  all  this  industry  is  just  this,  that,  after 
two  or  three  ambiguous  cases  have  been  allowed  for, 
the  apostolic  antiquity  of  the  several  portions  of  the 
New  Testament  canon  is  out  of  the  question ;  and  that 
as  to  the  Epistles  (with  which  alone  I  am  at  present 
concerned)  the  genuineness  and  authenticity  of  these 
writings  rests  upon  evidence  one-tenth  part  of  which  has 
been  customarily  admitted  as  sufiicient,  in  any  parallel 
instance,  on  the  field  of  classical  literature.  It  must 
be  a  sickly  affectation,  or  it  must  indicate  a  feebleness  of 
the  reasoning  faculty,  to  speak  in  any  other  tone  than 
this  of  the  result  of  those  critical  explorations  of  which 
the  Canonical  Epistles  have  been  the  subject,  in  the 
course  of  the  last  fifty  or  sixty  years. 

As  to  any  argument  with  which,  just  now,  I  am  con- 
cerned, I  should  be  content  if  there  were  handed  over 
to  me,  only  so  many  as  four  or  five  of  the  Apostolic 
Epistles  —  or  even  fewer,  as  undoubtedly  genuine. 
Allow  me  any  where  good  anchor-hold  in  the  roadstead 
of  apostolicity,  and  it  is  enough.  It  is  enough,  not 
merely  because  these  fewer  authentic  documents  by 
themselves  carry  an  inference  from  which  we  can 
never  escape ;  but  because,  as  I  shall  show,  a  spu- 
rious writing,  which  is  so  like  the  genuine  as  hardly 
to  be  distinguished  from  it,  will  bear  the  weight  of 
my  present  argument  almost  as  well  as  if  it  were 
genuine. 


THE   RESTOEATION    OF   BELIEF.  121 

* 

Then,  after  some  such  spui-ious  or  ambiguous  docu- 
ment has  yielded  its  available  amount  of  evidence,  in  a 
direct  manner,  it  serves  a  further  purpose  in  giving 
support  indirectly  to  the  genuine.  The  genuine  shows 
the  "  Hall-mark  ;"  but  the  spurious,  or  the  doubtful, 
carries  a  mark  that  is  less  authentic  ;  and  the  com- 
parison of  the  two  "  stampings"  affords  the  ground  of 
a  new  confidence,  as  to  that  which  already  we  hold  to 
be  infallible. 

With  our  English  straightforwardness  about  us,  and 
our  dislike  of  the  practice  of  catching  at  straws  for  the 
purpose  of  keeping  a  desperate  hypothesis  above  water, 
we  take  in  hand  a  sample  of  German  hypercritical  cap- 
tiousness.  It  runs  in  this  way: — "throughout  our 
Epistle,"  says  the  critic,  "  we  find  several  words,  and 
some  combinations  of  words,  that  are  not  Pauline ; 
they  indicate  another  mind,  and  another  hand.  The 
forger,  it  must  be  confessed,  has  very  nearly  hit" — 
what  ?  Paul's  style  ! — but  not  quite  :  he  has  done  his 
work  cleverly ;  but  yet  he  has  betrayed  himself  in  not 
fewer  than  half-a-dozen  places. 

This  Pauline  style  is  then — AN  historic  reality — 
and  as  such  I  want  nothing  more ;  it  is  distinct,  and 
distinguishable,  by  its  individual  characteristics,  which 
are  of  so  marked  a  kind  that,  while  they  held  out  a 
temptation  to  the  ancient  forger,  the}''  are  of  so  pecu- 
liar a  sort  that  modern  critics  are  sure  of  their  scent 
whenever  an  imitation  is  under  inquiry.  It  is  just 
thus  that  a  practised  collector  of  ancient  coins  applies 
his  tongue  to  a  specious  "  Cleopatra,"  or  to  a  false 
"Ptolemy;"  for  he  knows  the  taste  of  the  genuine 
Egyptian  mintage    too   well    to   be  so  easily  imposed 

11 


122  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

upon  : — the  colour  of  the  rust  is  nothing.  The  Critic 
takes  a  bearing  upon  that  which  is  genuine  (implicitly, 
if  not  explicitly,)  for  the  purpose  of  discarding  the 
spurious.  But  I  take  a  position  even  upon  the  spu- 
rious, that,  from  that  vantage-ground,  I  may  learn  to 
trust  myself  with  more  confidence  to  the  genuine.  As 
to  any  one  particular,  of  the  twenty-one  epistles  of  the 
Canon,  the  question  of  its  genuineness  and  authenticity 
need  not  be  entered  upon  until  some  critic,  competent 
to  the  task,  comes  forward,  in  seriousness,  and  with 
copiousness  of  proofs,  to  affirm  that  all  of  them  are 
forgeries.  This  will  not  be  attempted  ;  or  if  it  be  at- 
tempted, those  who  engage  in  such  an  enterprise  must 
first  make  a  clear  field  by  erasing  every  remains  of 
antiquity — profane  and  religious,  anterior  to  the  Nor- 
man conquest. 

"  Nor  do  we  now  touch  any  question  as  to  the  alleged 
Inspiration  of  these  epistles,  or  of  any  other  books  of 
the  Canon.  We  are  often  told  that  we  timidly  h&ld  up 
this  "  Inspiration"  as  a  screen,  lest  the  documents  of 
our  faith  should  come  to  be  dealt  with  severely,  in  the 
mode  that  is  proper  to  historic  criticism.  Only  let  this 
Historic  Severity  take  its  free  course,  and  Disbelief 
Avill  be  driven  from  its  last  standing-place.  It  is  my 
perfect  persuasion  that,  in  the  now  actual  position  of 
the  Christian  argument,  the  doctrine  of  the  Inspira- 
tion of  the  Canonical  books  is  of  more  importance,  in 
a  logical  sense,  to  Disbelief  than  it  is  to  Belief. 

If  every  one  of  the  Canonical  books  of  the  New 
Testament — every  one  of  those  in  behalf  of  which 
Inspiration  is  alleged,  had  perished,  and  if  nothing 
were  now  before  us  but  the  uninspired  documents  of 


THE    RESTORATION     OF     BELIEF.  123 

Cliristianlty — (tliose  of  the  second  century)  I  must  still 
be  a  Christian,  although  I  should  often  be  at  a  loss 
as  to  the  single  items  of  my  Creed.  But  now  if  the 
Canonical  writings— Inspiration  not  considered,  were 
dealt  with  in  the  historic  mode,  without  prejudice 
or  favour,  Disbelief  would  wither  like  the  grass  of 
the  tropics. 


CLASSIFICATION    OF   THE   BOOKS    OF   THE    NEW   TESTA- 
MENT,   IN    RELATION    TO    THIS    ARGUMENT. 

The  historic  and  the  supernatural  (the  miraculous) 
are  connected  in  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  in 
the  way  of  Cohesion,  not  of  adhesion  merely ;  but 
then  this  cohesion  takes  eifect  in  a  very  different 
manner  in  different  instances.  These  differences  it  is 
important  to  take  account  of;  and  it  suggests  a  clas- 
sification of  the  canonical  documents  accordingly.  The 
Twenty-seven  books  take  their  places,  when  regarded 
in.  this  particular  aspect,  under  three  heads ;  and  thus 
we  have — 

I.  Those,  throughout  the  substance  of  which  the 
historic  base  blends  itself  with  the  supernatural  in  the 
way  of  explicit  and  circumstantial  narrative.  These 
of  course  are  the  Four  Gospels,  and  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles. 

II.  Those  books  in  which,  once  or  oftener,  some 
explicit  affirmation  of  the  supernatural  occurs ;  but 
which  contain  no  circumstantial  narrative  of  miracu- 
lous events.     Of  this  sort  are  Seven  of  the  Epistles. 

III.  Those  in  which  we  find  no  affirmation  of  this 
sort,  and  throughout  Avhich  the  supernatural  makes  no 
other  appearance  than  that  which  is  implicitly  (though 
necessarilv)    conveyed   in    the    primary    article  of  the 

(124) 


THE   RESTOKATION   OF   BELIEF.  125 

Christian  profession — namely,  the  Resurrection  of 
Christ.  This  necessary  implication  always  under- 
stood, the  writer  affirms  nothing  that  is  miraculous. 
As  many  as  Fourteen  of  the  Epistles  come  under  this 
category. 

In  relation  to  the  present  argument  the  Apocalypse 
does  not  take  a  place  in  our  arrangement. 

The  facts  then  which,  under  this  aspect,  stand 
before  us,  in  outline,  are  these — That,  out  of  the  six 
and  twenty  constituents  of  the  Canon,  Fourteen  are 
(as  I  here  presume  to  call  them)  non-supernatural, 
saving  only  that  one  constant  element,  expressed  or 
implied  in  every  Christian  writing — the  Resurrection 
of  Christ.  Of  the  Twelve  remaining  books,  Seven 
Epistles,  besides  this  universal  implication,  distinctly 
affirm  the  fact  of  a  miraculous  agency  of  which  the 
writer  professes  to  have  personal  cognizance.  Five, 
or,  if  the  Gospel  of  Luke  and  the  Acts  be  reckoned 
as  one — Four,  books  not  merely  allege  this  agency, 
but  narrate  instances  of  miracles  ;  and  so  relate 
them  that  the  natural  and  supernatural  constitute 
a  continuous  tissue,  not  resolvable  into  two,  except 
by  violence. 

It  is  natural  to  place  these  three  classes  in  the  order 
here  assigned  to  them  ;  but  the  logical  order,  or  that 
in  which  they  offer  themselves  most  conveniently  for 
a  rigid  scrutiny,  which  would  end  in  a  peremptory 
conclusion,  is  just  the  contrary.  I  therefore  begin 
with  the  Fourteen  Epistles  which,  liable  to  the  con- 
dition already  mentioned,  are  here  designated  as  the 
non-supernatural.  These  are — The  Epistles,  to  thd'^ 
Ephesians — to  the    Colossians — to    the    Philippians — 

11* 


% 


126  THE   RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

the  two  to  the  Thessalonians— the  two  to  Timothy, 
the  Epistles  to  Titus,  and  to  Philemon,  and  the 
five  Catholic  Epistles  of  St.  James,  St.  John,  and 
St.  Jude. 

This  significant  fact,  that  more  than  half  of  the 
authentic  documents  of  a  Religion  boldly  resting  itself 
upon  miraculous  attestations,  contain  no  explicit  allu- 
sion to  such  events,  claims  our  strict  attention.  At  a 
glance  this  fact  is  susceptible  of  opposite  interpreta- 
tions ;  but  its  true  meaning  will  be  seen  in  attending 
to  the  particular  instances  in  which  it  appears. 

Manifestly,  this  tri-partition  of  the  Canonical  books 
is  founded  upon  no  intrinsic  difference  distinguishing 
them  ;  but  is  accidental  merely.  The  difi"erence  has  no 
other  reality  than  that  which  attaches  to  these  compo- 
sitions in  their  bearing  upon  the  argument  just  now  in 
hand.  It  is  to  the  same  writer  that  we  attribute  five 
of  the  books  of  the  second  class,  and  nine  of  those 
belonging  to  the  third ;  and  between  those  of  the  second 
and  those  of  the  third,  there  is  discernible  no  difference 
of  doctrine,  or  of  tone,  or  of  moral  intention.  Yet  the 
one  circumstance  which  constitutes  the  reason  of  this 
present  classification  is  itself  explicable,  and  it  consists 
perfectly  with  our  assumption  of  the  historic  reality 
of  the  Christian  documents.  That  fourteen  out  of 
twenty-one  epistles,  should  contain  no  affirmation  con- 
cerning miracles,  does  not  imply  that  miracles  were 
not  alleged  by  the  teachers  of  Christianity ; — for  they 
are  alleged,  boldly  and  clearly  ;  but  it  quite  excludes 
the  inference  that  these  teachers  were  men  of  heated  i 
minds  whose  element  was  the  world  of  wonders,  and 
who  would  alwnys  be  labouring  to  propagate  the  -same 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  127 

feeling,  and  to  keep  alive  a  species  of  excitement  which 
is  found  to  be  peculiarly  grateful  to  the  mass  of  man- 
kind. This  fact,  moreover,  under  the  conditions  which, 
as  we  shall  see,  attach  to  it,  excludes  the  supposition 
that  the  preachers  of  the  Gospel  were  accustomed  to 
indulge  themselves  in  the  supernatural  where  it  was  safe 
to  do  so ;  but  that  they  cautiously  abstained  from  any 
allusion  to  it  where  there  might  be  a  risk  of  provoking 
scrutiny  and  contradiction  ;  the  very  contrary  of  this 
is  that  which  presents  itself. 

The  writers  of  these  Fourteen  Epistles — this  is  con- 
spicuously evident — were  neither  striving  to  bolster  up 
their  own  confidence,  by  incessant  references  to  miracles ; 
nor  endeavouring  to  sustain  the  constancy  of  their  con- 
verts, by  any  such  means.  Their  habit  was — we  do 
not  infer  this,  but  see  it — to  allege  miracles  whenever 
there  was  direct  occasion  so  to  do — and  not  otherwise  ; 
and  therefore,  though  they  make  this  allegation  in 
Seven  Epistles,  they  do  not  make  it  \\\  fourteen.  When 
an  Apostle  writes  to  his  intimates — his  colleagues,  and 
to  those  whose  belief  was  a  tranquil  assurance,  like  his 
own — not  a  syllable  of  the  supernatural  meets  the  eye. 
When  he  defies  his  adversaries,  and  rebukes  a  set  of 
faulty  converts,  he  takes  his  stand  upon  miracles ;  but 
even  then  a  word  of  allusion  to  them  is  enough. 

The  Fourteen  Epistles  that  do  not  refer  to  the  super- 
natural are  attributed  to  four  writers,  namely,  St.  Paul, 
St.  John,  St.  Jude,  and  St.  James.  The  temperament 
of  these  four  writers  is  as  diverse  as  can  be  imagined, 
and  the  style  of  each  has  no  resemblance  to  that  of  the 
others.  This  dissimilarity  of  character  being  conspicu- 
ous (and  it  has  often  been  insisted  upon)  the  fact  that 


128  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

the  four  are  brought  tlius  into  company  on  the  ground 
of  their  abstinence  from  the  supernatural,  in  these 
epistles,  carries  the  more  meaning ;  for  it  is  evident 
that  this  abstinence  did  not  draw  its  reasons  from  the 
dispositions  of  an  individual  writer,  but  from  an  in- 
fluence belonging  to  the  Religion  they  professed,  and 
■which  bore  alike  upon  the  four  whenever  the  circum- 
stances under  which  they  WTOte  were  similar,  or  similar 
in  this  particular  respect.  It  has  been  customary  to 
say — and  we  may  always  say  it  confidently — that  God 
works  no  miracles  without  cause  sufficient :  and  now  it 
appears  that  these  His  servants  make  no  mention  of 
miracles — Avithout  cause  sufficient.  As  in  the  Christian 
dispensation  the  supernatural  was  measured  out  by  the 
necessity  of  the  occasion,  so  are  the  allusions  to  it  re- 
stricted within  the  limits  of  a  rigid  frugality. 


St.  Jude. 

I  TAKE  in  hand  the  Epistle  of  St.  Jude  as  if  it  were 
the  solitary  extant  contemporaneous  document  of  that 
Christianity  of  which  I  have  seen  and  heard  so  much, 
while   traversing   the   Roman  world  in  the   times   of 
Trajan  and  the  Antonines. 

This  Epistle  is  one  of  those  which,  through  the 
caution  of  the  ancient  Church,  took  its  place  among 
the  avii-Kiyofiivo. — the  "controverted."  Not  that  its 
antiquity  was  questioned,  or  its  authenticity,  in  any 
such  sense  as  is  material  to  my  present  argument.  The 
writer  does  not  call  himself  an  Apostle ;  and  the 
Church  hesitated  to  admit  the  claims  which  had  been 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  129 

advanced  in  his  behalf  in  this  respect.  Besides,  such 
was  the  religious  feeling  of  tht  Christian  body,  and  of 
the  critics  of  the  third  century,  that  because  Jude,  in 
two  places,  quotes,  as  genuine,  two  books  that  were 
held  to  be  spurious,  this  apparent  error  was  judged  to 
be  incompatible  with  his  repute  as  an  Inspired  writer. 
Although  an  easy  supposition,  namely,  that  St.  Jude 
cites,  not  those  spurious  writings,  but  some  then  extant 
remains,  afterwards  incorporated  in  the  spurious  books, 
might  have  obviated  this  objection,  it  so  far  had  in- 
fluence as  to  keep  this  Epistle  under  a  cloud  until  some 
time  in  the  fourth  century.  But  with  no  ambiguities  of 
this  kind  have  I  any  thing  to  do  at  present.  That  the 
Epistle  is  a  writing  of  the  Apostolic,  or  very  early 
times,  has  not  been  reasonably  questioned. 

What  this  means  is  just  this — that  if  those  rules  of 
historical  criticism  which  prevail  in  this  department — 
the  department  to  which  the  instance  rightfully  belongs 
— are  allowed  to  take  effect,  then  the  Epistle  of  St. 
Jude  is  a  genuine  document  of  the  Christianity  of  the 
first  century.  Yet,  even  if  it  were  nothing  better  than 
a  good  imitation  of  such  documents,  promulgated  in 
the  Apostolic  age,  it  would  serve  my  purpose  as  well. 

The  energy,  the  simplicity,  the  gravity,  and  the 
moral  tone  proper  to  a  genuine  writing,  are  manifestly 
the  characteristics  of  this.  It  has,  too,  a  graphic  force 
and  a  rotundity  peculiar  to  it.  Look  to  the  Greek  of 
this  epistle,  and  you  recognize  the  style  of  a  writer 
who  has  a  great  command  of  tropical  phraseology,  and 
whose  cumulation  and  condensation  together  indicate 
an  intensity  of  feeling,  which  yet  is  governed  in  the 
manner  that  is  usual  with  men  in   places  of  authority, 


1,30  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

who,  while  they  write  with  power,  are  careful  not  to 
compromise  their  position  by  a  lax  diffuseness.  While 
they  show  a  stern  countenance  toward  offenders,  they 
preserve  the  calm  aspect  of  paternal  love  towards  the 
better  sort. 

But  the  document  in  hand  carries  a  meaning  of  a 
more  definite  kind. 

Whether  or  not  we  choose  to  regard  an  affirmation 
of  the  supernatural  as  a  dead  weight  which  must  sink 
any  writing  in  which  it  occurs,  no  such  weight  attaches 
to  the  Epistle  in  hand.  Indirectly,  as  I  have  said, 
the  reality  of  the  primary  miracle  of  the  Christian  pro- 
fession is  implied ;  but  the  writer  claims  no  power  of 
working  miracles  for  himself;  nor  does  he  allude  to  any 
occurrences  of  this  class.  There  does  not  present 
itself,  therefore,  aiiy  hypothetical  difficulty  which 
should  bar  the  way  of  the  inference  I  have  in  view. 

Thus  far  I  suppose  myself  to  know  absolutely  nothing 
concerning  Christianity  beyond  that  which  I  have 
gathered,  by  some  industry,  from  the  writers — Christian 
and  Heathen — of  the  period  specified  (p.  39.)  What 
I  have  so  learned  stands  far  out  of  the  reach  of  con- 
troversy or  contradiction.  No  scholarlike  man  would 
dream  of  attempting  to  bring  the  main  facts  into 
question.  This  various  and  voluminous  evidence  is,  as 
I  have  said  (pp.  56  and  104)  a  body  of  testimonies 
gathered  from  a  surface  geographically  more  extended 
than  the  Roman  empire  ;  and  when  thus  regarded,  the 
broadly  expanded  mass  is  seen  to  take  a  concentric 
bearing  upon  that  which  must  have  been  the  common 
source  of  the  whole.  I^^d^ed  nothing  belonging  to 
that  central  point  had  come  down  to  us,  we  must  have 


THE    EESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  131 

surmised  concerning  it  as  well  as  we  could  ;  but  if 
only  a  single  fragment  belonging  to  it  reacbes  us,  tben, 
instead  of  vague  surmises,  we  look  to  it  in  tbe  war- 
rantable expectation  of  finding  tbat  this  piece,  small  as 
it  may  be,  will  show  a  true  congruity  with  the  mass 
which  remotely  bears  upon  it.  The  mason's  chiseling 
upon  this  key-stone  will  serve  to  identify  it  as  belonging 
to  the  arch. 

Take  notice  then  of  my  purpose,  which  is  this  : — in 
the  course  of  an  inductive  scrutiny  of  the  various  ma- 
terials in  my  hand,  I  am  getting  together,  and  bringing 
to  their  respective  places,  the  well-squared  stones  of  a 
firm  historic  structure,  to  which  structure,  as  I  shall 
afterward  show,  the  supernatural  so  coheres  that  the 
two  elements  can  never  be  sundered;  or  can  never  be 
fairly  sundered. 

The  community  addressed  in  this  Epistle  was  of  some 
standing,  for  it  had  its  stated  observances,  its  ^drtat,, 
and  there  had  been  time  for  it  not  merely  to  develop  its 
own  proper  qualities,  but  to  draw  toward  itself,  as  a 
new  and  fervent  religious  body  always  does,  men  of 
cloaked  purposes,  who  had  found  in  it  the  means  of 
gratifying  their  ambition,  their  cupidity,  or  their  licen- 
tiousness. Yet  this  mischief,  the  constant  attendant  as 
it  is  of  a  remarkable  religious  movement,  was  a  recent 
occurrence ;  for  the  writer,  a  man  in  authority,  upon 
gaining  knowledge  of  it  had  ^^  hastened"  to  throw  him- 
self  in    the   way  of   its    further    spread — rcdisav  artovbriv 

These  evil-purposed  men  had  snatched  at  a  doctrine 
which,  when  it  is  grossly  apprehended  by  men  of  a 
sensual  temper,  seems  to  screen  all  vices.     We  descry 


132  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

in  this  instance  the  distinguishing  feature  of  the 
Christian  system  (already  known  to  us)  that  is  to  say, 
the  free  remission  of  sins,  of  which  even  the  most  pro- 
fligate are  invited  to  avail  themselves.  It  is  not  against 
the  immorality  of  the  wide  world  that  the  writer  in- 
veighs ;  but  against  that  of  those  who  had  abused  a 
Christian  profession  in  this  very  manner.  This  abuse 
had  become  rank  in  a  degree  to  which  seasons  of  perse- 
cution supply  an  effective  remedy.  The  -season  of 
general  persecution  had  not,  as  it  seems,  yet  com- 
menced ;  for  if  it  had,  these  vultures  would  have  flown. 
The  Church  of  the  martyr  age  we  found  in  the  atti- 
tude of  a  moral  force,  struggling  to  maintain  a  difficult 
position,  closely  beleaguered  on  every  side  by  gross 
errors  of  belief,  by  abounding  immoralities,  and  by 
virulent  animosities.  In  the  course  of  this  strusifflc  the 
Church  was  unconsciously  coming  into  the  possession 
of  that  fundamental  principle  of  genuine  morality — 
the  sense  of  individual  responsibility  toward  God.  This 
germ  of  whatever  is  good  it  brought  out  into  act  for 
itself,  and  then  passed  it  down  for  the  benefit  of  man- 
kind in  all  time  following.  But  we  naturally  look  for 
the  rudiments  of  so  remarkable  a  revolution  in  the  ori- 
ginal documents  of  the  religion  which  gave  it  to  the 
world,  and  now  it  comes  under  our  eye  in  this  Epistle. 
At  a  later  time  it  was  constancy  in  the  endurance  of 
suflFerings  for  the  truth's  sake  that  had  thrown  the 
Christian  upon  his  individual  responsibility.  In  this 
earlier  age  it  was  constancy  in  resisting  the  insidious 
advances  of  false  doctrine,  and  of  specious  immoralities 
that  had  availed  to  the  same  end  ;  and  this  constancy, 
as  well  in  its  later  as  in  its  earlier  forms,  had  been 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  133 

animated  by  the  same  prospect  of  immortal  blessedness. 
Thus  are  these  springs  of  the  moral  life  mingled  in  the 
closing  injunctions  of  the  Epistle.  Towards  delinquents 
a  compassionate  discrimination  was  to  be  used — the  in- 
dividual demerits  of  each  being  considered  (verses  22, 
23) ;  while  those  who  stood  firm  were  reminded  of 
their  dependence  every  moment  upon  the  help  of  God ; 
and  this  caution  is  conveyed  in  terms  which,  within  the 
compass  of  five  lines,  concentrate  what  is  most  affecting 
in  Theology  and  in  Ethics.  As  to  this  majestic  dox- 
ology,  we  should  lose  more  in  losing  the  truths  it  con- 
veys than  in  consigning  to  the  abyss  of  oblivion  the 
entire  body  of  classical  philosophy.  "  To  Him  who  is 
able  to  guard  you  unfallen,  and  to  make  you  stand 
before  the  glory  (of  his  presence)  unblamable  in  joy — 
to  the  one  God,  our  Saviour,  by  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord, 
(be  ascribed)  glory  and  majesty,  might  and  authority, 
as  well  now  as  throughout  all  ages.     Amen." 

Here  then  we  find  in  this  Epistle,  exempt  from 
every  exception,  reasonable,  or  unreasonable,  A  CEN- 
TERIXG-STONE  of  that  structure  which,  in  the  age  of 
the  Antonines,  had  arched  over  the  Roman  world, 
from  East  to  West,  from  North  to  South. 


St.  James. 

To  WHICH  of  the  persons  of  this  name,  mentioned  in 
The  Gospels,  this  Epistle  should  be  attributed,  it  is  of 
no  moment  to  inquire ;  nor  is  it  material  to  know  any 
thing  more  concerning  it  than  that  it  is  of  very  early 
date ;  of  which  fact,   besides  the  references  to    it  by 

12 


134  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

Clement,  Hermas,  and  others — the  pLace  it  hokls  in  the 
ancient  Syriac  version  is  sufficient  evidence. 

Notwithstanding  a  single  passage  of  ambiguous  im- 
port (v.  14,  15)  I  do  not  hesitate  to  class  this  epistle 
along  with  the  non-supernafMral.  The  writer,  among 
miscellaneous  injunctions,  gives  one  which  by  no  means 
necessitates  the  supposition  of  wdiat  should  be  called  a 
miraculous  agency  : — miracles  were  incidental  and  ex- 
traordinary (in  their  very  import)  but  in  this  place  a 
customary  occurrence  is  referred  to,  and  the  reason  of 
the  course  which  the  writer  advises  to  be  taken  is 
drawn  from  a  general  truth,  namely,  the  efficacy  of 
prayer. 

The  force  and  vivacity  of  this  composition,  besides  the 
comparative  purity  of  the  Greek,  give  it  a  very  marked 
character.  It  resembles,  except  in  a  few  phrases,  none 
of  those  with  which,  in  the  canon  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, it  is  associated.  The  writer  gives  us  a  distinct 
idea  of  himself,  as  -well  as  a  portraiture  of  the  persons 
with  whom  he  had  to  do,  which  is  specially  graphic. 
The  indications  of  historic  reality  stand  out,  one  might 
say,  with  a  harsh  prominence  on  every  paragraph  of 
this  Epistle.  Nothing  here  has  been  smoothed  down  : 
there  has  been  no  revision  of  the  first  draught  w^ith  a 
view  to  secure  consistency,  or  to  avoid  giving  offence. 
The  writer  must  have  known  that  his  official  position, 
and  the  weight  of  his  personal  character,  could  secure 
for  him  a  hearing,  how  unacceptable  soever  might  be 
the  rebukes  which  it  was  his  duty  to  administer 

To  no  community  could  these  remonstrances,  and 
these  reprehensions,  and  these  pungent  advices  seem 
flattering.     They  might  be  submitted  to,  but  they  could 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  135 

not  be  welcomed.  The  writer  uses  the  tone  of  a  man 
in  authority — in  oiEce  ;  yet  he  does  not  labour  to  vin- 
dicate that  authority;  nor  does  he  go  about  to  sustain 
the  pretensions  of  a  sacerdotal  class ;  he  falls  in  with 
no  prejudices ;  he  flatters  no  overweenings  of  national 
or  sectarian  self-love.  The  epistle  bears  upon  its  sur- 
face the  straightforward  purpose  of  a  firmly  constituted 
and  fearless  mind,  opposing  itself  at  once  to  open 
abuses  and  to  specious  pretexts.  Nothing  that  is 
sinister — nothing  deeper  than  the  resolute  intention  of 
one  who  is  jealous  for  truth  and  virtue,  can  any  where 
be  discerned  among  the  sententious  clauses  of  this  com- 
position. 

We  are  free  to  take  it  for  what  it  seems :  to  take  it 
in  any  other  sense  we  are  not  free.  We  are  no  more 
at  liberty  so  to  do  than  we  should  be  to  put  an  ill  con- 
struction upon  the  words  or  conduct  of  a  neighbour, 
•against  whom  we  have  not  a  shadow  of  unfavourable 
evidence.  This  writer  is  not  a  man  of  meditative  turn : 
his  modes  of  thinking  are  fixed ;  his  views,  so  far  as 
appears  from  the  epistle,  are  limited ;  his  habits  and 
feeling  show  the  practical,  not  the  abstract  tendency. 
In  temper  he  is  firm ;  or  even  severe ;  but  yet  he  is 
discriminative;  and,  toward  the  well-behaved  he  is 
indulgent  and  loving.  He  resents  subterfuges,  he  is 
indignant  at  wrong.  He  does  not  work  his  way,  by 
reasoning  toward  a  conclusion,  but  seizes  it  with  viva- 
city, by  a  moral  instinct.  His  logic  is  of  this  kind — 
"  Talk  as  you  may — profess  what  you  please,  I  know 
of  only  one  sort  of  piety  that  can  be  acceptable  before 
God,  our  Father ;  which  shows  itself  in  visiting  the 
fatherless  and  widows  in  their  affliction,  and  in  keeping 


136  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

itself  unspotted  from  the  (pollutions  of  the)  world. — 
Whatever  your  theology  may  be,  the  wisdom  which  I 
acknowledge  to  be  genuine  and  heavenly,  is  pure, 
peacefully  disposed,  gentle,  easy  to  be  persuaded, 
abounding  in  works  of  mercy,  and  in  fruits  of  good- 
ness:— it  is  impartial,  and  aborrent  of  disguises." 

Such  is  the  writer ;  but  the  episile  gives  a  brightly 
historic  reflexion  of  the  manners,  tempers,  usages,  of 
the  community,  or  class  of  persons  that  is   addressed. 

But  now  shall  not  a  discreet  Christian  apologist  hesi- 
tate before  he  lifts  the  curtain  ?  He  will  do  so  if  what 
he  is  in  search  of,  in  antiquity,  is  a  factitious  image, 
or  a  fabulous  social  condition  ;  not  if  he  be  in  quest  of 
hard  historic  realities :  not  if  it  be  his  ambition  to 
drive  off  from  the  Christian  precincts  the  shadows,  the 
myths,  the  quaint  unintelligible  hypotheses  of  German 
origin,  in  the  mists  of  which  English  Disbelief  is  just 
now  finding  a  momentary  refuge. 

Even  if  the  writer  of  this  Epistle  had  not  prefixed  to 
it  the  conventional  phrase  which  designates  his  nation, 
"  the  twelve  tribes  of  the  Dispersion,"  we  should  have 
had  no  difiiculty  in  recognising  our  company.  It  is 
certain  that,  on  this  occasion,  we  have  entered  the  an- 
cient Synagogue.  The  noisy  congregation  around  us 
has  become  professedly  Christian ;  but  in  behaviour, 
and  in  moral  costume,  they  are  Jews,  more  than  Chris- 
tians. They  are  persons  who  have  not  undergone  that 
melting  down  of  the  soul  which  took  place  in  the  in- 
stance of  educated  Polytheists  who,  when  they  "  turned 
from  dumb  idols  to  serve  the  living  God,"  and  when 
they  awoke  to  the  hope  of  immortality,  passed  under 
the  transformations  of  a  new  existence.     As  to  these 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF.         137 

synnagogue  converts,  they  had  given  up  one  religious 
persuasion,  and  they  had  taken  up  another.  They  had 
yielded  the  one  point  of  controversial  difference  be- 
tween the  Synagogue  and  the  Church ;  but  they  had 
retained  entire,  their  factious  spirit,  and  their  wrang- 
ling habit  of  discourse.  They  were  expert  in  the  twists 
and  sophistries  of  casuistical  evasion  :  they  were  ever 
ready  to  cry  "  Corban,"  when  appealed  to  on  the  ground 
of  mercy  and  piety.  Between  the  obliquities  of  their 
Jewish  training,  and  the  simplicity  of  the  Christian 
system,  a  perpetual  conflict  was  going  on.  That  char- 
acteristic of  the  community  of  which  we  get  a  glimpse 
in  this  graphic  epistle,  is — moral  restlessness — a  want 
of  equilibrium — a  want  of  repose,  an  utter  want  of 
consistency.  One  hears  the  clatter  and  the  jars  of  a 
discordant  assemblage  of  men  who,  as  yet,  have  ad- 
justed nothing  in  their  own  principles  or  motives.  In 
a  word — and  it  is  a  word  full  of  historic  meaning,  we 
have  stepped  into  the  Synagogue  ! 

These  Jewish  converts  were  skilled  in  those  perverse 
reasonings,  by  means  of  which  men  are  wont  to  throw 
the  blame  of  their  many  failures  upon  God  (i.  13). 
They  were  glib  in  speech,  (i.  19)  lagging  in  conduct ; 
prompt  to  dictate,  (iv.  1)  slow  to  learn.  Ready  to 
cringe  before  the  rich,  (ii.  2)  backward  in  administer- 
ing to  the  needs  of  the  poor,  (ii.  15).  Such  was  the 
wild  license  of  the  Jewish  tongue,  that  the  writer  ex- 
hausts all  figures  that  can  be  applicable  to  the  subject, 
in  labouring  to  set  forth  its  unbridled  excesses :  a 
tongue,  the  incendiary  intensity  of  which  declared  its 
rise  in  the  nether  furnace ;  a  tongue,  in  one  hour,  tak- 
ing its  part  in  a  liturgy,  in   the  next  pouring  forth 

12* 


138  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

curses  !  These  apt  scholars  of  the  Devil  (iii.  15)  slan 
derers,  like  their  teacher,  (iv.  2)  are  dealt  with  in  a 
way  which  nothing  could  sustain  but  the  intrepidity  of 
the  most  assured  virtue  and  piety.  We  shall  presently 
find  the  very  same  men  (the  likenesses  are  not  to  be  mis- 
taken) treated  by  another  chief  of  the  new  religion,  in 
his  own  style ;  but  with  the  same  fearlessness. 

Critics  have  differed  as  to  the  country  of  the  writer. 

It  is  of  little  moment  to  settle  this  point ; — of  none 
just  now.  The  people  of  the  synagogue  are  much  the 
same  folk,  wherever  we  find  them.  They  were  so,  not 
merely  from  the  prevalence  and  decisiveness  of  their 
national  dispositions  and  habits ;  but  because  the  indi- 
viduals composing  these  congregations  were  migratory, 
carrying  with  them,  of  course,  their  peculiarities.  Even 
now,  in  this  synagogue  in  which  we  have  taken  our 
stand,  there  are  some  who  have  lately  arrived  from  the 
ends  of  the  earth ;  and  there  are  also  some  who,  at  the 
moment  when  the  sun  goes  down,  will  be  busy  at  home, 
strapping  their  packages,  and  preparing  to  depart,  at 
dusk,  or  at  dawn,  having  already  whispered  to  them- 
selves the  words  reported  by  this  writer — "  To-day,  or 
to-morrow,  we  will  go  into  such  a  city,  and  continue 
there  a  year,  and  buy  and  sell  and  get  gain." 

The  precise  date,  too,  of  this  epistle  is  controverted ; 
yet,  apart  from  reasons  of  a  critical  kind,  and  which 
favour  a  very  early  date,  that  peculiar  moral  condition 
of  indeterminate  conflict,  between  Jewish  tempers,  and 
Christian  principles,  which  this  epistle  brings  so  vividly 
before  us,  must,  in  its  nature,  have  belonged  only  to  a 
transition  period ;  and  we  know,  in  fact,  that  while  Ju 
daism  speedily  collapsed  upon  itself,  Christianity  soor 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  139 

ceased  to  wear  this  party  coloured  garb  ;  and  every 
where  showed  its  own  mind,  as  the  very  contrary  of 
Judaism.  This  epistle  would  not  comport  with  any 
state  of  things  of  later  date  than  the  Jewish  war. 

There  is  one  point  of  accordance  between  the  epistle  of 
St.  Jude  and  that  of  St.  James  which  we  should  not  fail 
to  notice.  I  have  said,  (p.  101)  that  a  remarkable  uni- 
formity of  tone  characterizes  those  passages  in  the  writ- 
ings of  the  martyr  age  in  which  the  personal  attributes 
of  the  Saviour  Christ  are  alluded  to;    consequently, 

this  prime  feature  of  the  Christianity  of  the  second 
and  third  centuries  should  show  itself  in  every  docu- 
ment bearing  date  in  the  apostolic  times.  And  so  it  does 
in  these  two  instances,  and  the  fact  is  the  more  observable 
because,  in  neither  of  them,  is  the  theological  element 
distinctly  brought  forward.  The  one  writer  speaks  with 
a  calm  solemnity  of  Him  whom  some,  by  their  immo- 
ralities, had  impiously  denied — "  our  only  Lord  God 
and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ ;"  and  the  faithful  are  exhor- 
ted to  "  look  for"  the  "  mercy  "  of  this  Saviour,  "  unto 
eternal  life."  The  other  writer,  in  the  same  tone,  and 
with  the  same  allusive  brevity,  speaks  of  the  Christian 
profession,  as  the  faith  of  the  "  Lord  Jesus  Christ — (the 
Lord)  of  Glory."  And  he  denounces  those  who,  while 
persecuting  the  followers  of  the  Saviour,  were  accus- 
tomed to  "blaspheme  that  worthy  name." 

These  two  epistles,  then,  the  Imtoric  reality  of  which 
stands  out  of  the  reach  of  legitimate  scepticism,  and 
which  possess,  in  themselves,  a  peculiarly  well-defined 
character,  constitute — apart — and  togethei' — a  mass,  in- 
destructible in  itself,  and  equal  to  any  stress  which — to 


140  THE   RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

revert  to  my  masonic  allusion,  I  may  have  occasion  here- 
after to  throw  upon  it. 

But  suppose  that,  on  the  question  of  the  genuineness 
and  authenticity  of  these  epistles,  our  critical  evidence 
falls  short,  by  a  little,  of  irresistible  demonstration. 
This  imagined  faultincss  of  proof  (which  in  fact  cannot 
be  alleged)  may  indeed  touch  the  question  of  the  place 
that  should  be  assigned  to  them  in  the  Canon  of  In- 
spired Scripture ;  but  it  scarcely  affects  at  all,  if  at 
all,  my  present  argument. 

I  take  this  Epistle  of  St.  James,  marked  as  it  is  with 
the  inimitable  characteristics  of  genuineness — as  much 
so  as  any  literary  remains  of  antiquity  that  might  be 
placed  by  the  side  of  it.  As  to  its  antiquity^  all  shadow 
of  doubt  is  removed,  not  merely  by  the  quotations  of  it 
by  the  early  Fathers,  as  a  then  well  known  writing ; 
but  by  its  presence  in  the  Syriac  version,  in  which  the 
epistle  of  St.  Jude  does  not  appear.  These  very  early 
Translators  found  it  already  possessed  of  an  accredited 
repute  as  an  Apostolic  work;  and  as  such  it  had  been 
ordinarily  read  in  the  churches  using  this  language. 

But  let  us  imagine  that  these  ancient  Translators,  and 
that  the  Eastern  Churches  generally,  had  misjudged 
the  case ;  in  fact,  that  they  had  been  imposed  upon — 
the  epistle,  although  spurious,  bearing  so  much  the  sem- 
blance of  an  apostolic  work  that  they  did  not  detect 
the  fraud.  The  forger — the  imitator — the  compiler,  by 
whatever  epithet  we  should  designate  him,  so  well  under- 
stood the  manner  of  the  apostolic  teaching,  and  he  knew 
so  well  what  would  be  looked  for  by  Christian  readers 
in  any  composition  purporting  to  come  from  an  apos- 
tolic man,  that  he  could  expect  nothing  but  instantane- 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF..  141 

ous  detection  if  he  admitted  into  his  copy  so  much  as 
one  line  of  ambiguous  quality,  as  to  its  bearing  upon 
morals.  This  imagined  imitator  of  the  apostolic  style, 
after  looking  about  him  for  samples,  in  order  to  choose 
the  one  which  should  seem  the  most  characteristic,  and 
the  least  likely  to  awaken  suspicion,  makes  this  sort  of 
selection  : — He  writes  an  epistle,  in  the  assumed  name 
of  James,  for  which  he  hopes  to  obtain  currency  among 
Jewish  converts  throughout  the  world,  which  epistle 
breathes  an  uncompromising  moral  intensity,  and 
abounds  in  sharp  rebukes  of  that  sanctimoniousness 
which  was  the  prominent  characteristic  of  the  Jewish 
people  ? 

What  does  this  mean  but  that  the  well-known  apos- 
tolic style — the  style  which  an  imitator  would  think  it 
the  safest  to  attempt,  was  that  of  men  who,  with  the 
courage  of  God's  own  prophets,  were  wont  to  risk  every 
thing  in  behalf  of  the  truth  and  virtue  ?  I  do  not  see 
then  that  we  should  gain  much  on  the  side  of  Disbelief 
by  suggesting  doubts  as  to  the  genuineness  of  the  epis- 
tles of  the  Canon  :  better  let  them  pass  at  once  for  gen- 
uine and  authentic.  Apostolic  Christianity,  if  looked 
at  through  its  own  crystal,  shows  the  clear  brightness 
of  Heaven : — looked  at  in  the  copper  speculum  of  spu- 
rious writings,  it  carries  a  resplendence,  not  sensibly 
dimmed. 

St.  John. 

The  First  Epistle  of  St.  John  stands  among  the 
ufto%oyov/xsi'a  of  the  anciout  Church,  the  genuineness  and 
authenticity  of  which  are  copiously  attested.  The  second 


142  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

and  the  third  were  questioned ;  but  these  are  of  no 
moment  in  relation  to  my  argument,  any  further  than 
this — that,  if  imitations,  the  absence  in  them  of  any 
allusion  to  miracles  shows  that  this  omission  was  custo- 
mary in  the  Christian  writings  of  the  time. 

There  is  not  a  word  or  a  phrase  occurring  in  the  first 
Epistle  which  could  suggest  the  idea  that  Christianity 
had  made  its  way  in  the  world  by  the  aid  of  miracu- 
lous attestations — the  one  foundation  miracle  always 
supposed.  Yet  at  several  points,  throughout  it,  an 
allusion  to  miracles  would  have  seemed  fit  and  natural; 
especially  where  an  appeal  is  made,  to  that  assurance, 
of  being  in  the  possession  of  truth  which  the  writer 
affirms  to  be  the  privilege  of  Christians.  The  appeal  is 
to  an  interior  vitality,  not  to  external  demonstrations 
(iii.  14,  19,  iv.  16,  v.  10).  The  appeal  is  to  a  moral 
test,  not  to  the  supernatural  (iv.  20).  The  witnessing 
on  earth  (v.  8)  omits  the  witnessing  by  "  signs  and  won- 
ders." The  ripened  Christianity  which  this  writer 
spreads  out  before  us,  had  no  intrinsic  alliance  with  any 
such  attestations ;  which  belonged  to  the  outworks  of 
the  New  Religion. 

The  writer  last  cited  was  seen  to  be  in  conflict,  right 
and  left,  with  the  first  inburst  of  rancid  Judaism ;  but 
at  the  time  when  the  epistle  now  before  us  was  given 
to  the  Christian  community,  this  source  of  trouble  was 
just  passing  off  to  the  distance :  the  disturbers  had  dis- 
covered their  mistake  in  thinking  to  connect  themselves 
with  the  rising  body ;  and  they  had  retired.  "  They  went 
out  from  us,  but  they  were  not  of  us ;  for  if  they  had 
been  of  us,  they  would  have  remained  with  us."  (ii.  19.) 
The  Christian  body  had  at  length  become  homogeneous; 


IRE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  143 

the  leaven  having  worked  itself  into  the  mass.  Yet 
human  nature  is  always  the  same ;  and  we  find  that 
these  Teachers,  however  far  the  system  they  adminis- 
tered might  have  shifted  its  position,  and  how  widely 
soever  they  may  themselves  have  differed  in  tempera- 
ment, yet  tread  the  same  straight  path  whenever  this 
same  human  nature,  with  its  frailties,  awakens  their 
fears  for  the  honour  of  the  Gospel. 

This  identity  of  feeling,  and  even  of  language,  is  the 
more  observable,  because,  in  this  instance,  it  forms  the 
one  link  connecting  two  writers  who,  individually,  might 
he  taken  as  extreme  samples  of  the  most  opposite  ten- 
dencies of  the  human  mind.  The  one,  with  knit  brow, 
expanded  nostx'il,  firm  lip,  and  outstretched  hand — like 
the  master  of  a  ship  in  a  storm,  is  intent  upon  the  be- 
haviour of  his  people,  and  ubservant  of  the  shifting  tem- 
pest : — the  other,  Avith  even  front,  and  open  eye,  is 
gazing  upon  the  cloudless  vault  of  heaven,  as  if  uncon- 
scious of  earth,  and  always  ready  to  leave  it.  And  yet 
this  contemplatist  Avhose  own  converse  is  with  the  unseen 
of  the  Christian  system,  so  understands  this  system,  and 
is  so  alive  to  its  bearing  upon  the  conduct  of  its  adhe- 
rents, as  to  know  that,  if  the  sordid  and  factitious  reli- 
gionist slides  oif  from  the  path  of  morality,  on  the  one 
side,  the  sincere  idealist — the  man  of  meditation,  is  not 
unlikely  to  slide  off  from  it,  on  the  other. 

Noticeable  it  is  that,  while  the  main  drift  of  the  one 
epistle  is  practical,  and  the  spirit  and  tendency  of  the 
other  is  theological,  yet,  in  the  course  of  it,  the  writer 
lets  go,  and  again  takes  up  his  admonitory  strain  as 
often  as  seven  times  within  the  compass  of  so  brief  a 
treatise.     He  does  this  as  if  at  the  prompting  of  an  un- 


144  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

defined  moral    instinct,  which,  ever  and   again,  brings 
him  down  from  Heaven  to  earth,  alarmed  lest  he  should 
have  failed  in  any  point  of  his  duty,  as  a  leader  of  the 
people.      St.  James,  with  a  ruthless  hand,  rends  the 
mask   from    the    hypocrite.      St.    John,  with  a  loving 
solemnity  warns    the    mystically  disposed  against  those 
illusions — those  oblivions  of  the  obligations  of  life,  of 
which,  so  easily,  such  men  are  the  victims.     The  one 
Teacher  thus  rebukes  the  perversity  of  the  dogmatist — 
"  What  good  is  it,  my  brethren,  for  a  man  to  say  he 
hath  faith,  and  have  not  works  ?      Can  faith  [such  a 
faith)  save  him  ?"     The  other  teacher  addresses  himself 
to  the  sincere  theopathist — lost  in  the  meditation  of  in- 
effable perfections ;  but  yet  the  two  come  into  conjunc- 
tion, as  we  say  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  on  the  very  same 
meridian  of  Christian   charity: — the   one  says,  "if  a 
brother  or  a  sister  be  naked  and  destitute  of  daily  food, 
and  one  of  you  say  unto  them — depart  in  peace,  be 
ye   warmed  and  filled  ;  notwithstanding  ye  give  them 
not  those  things  which  are  needful  to  the  body  ;  what 
doth  it  profit  ?"     The   other   says  the  same  thing,  in 
his    own   manner :    "  Whoso    hath    this   world's    good, 
and   seeth   his   brother   have   need,   and   shuttcth   up 
his  bowels  from  him,  how  dwelleth  the  love  of  God  in 
him  ?" 

Now  at  this  point  I  decline  to  accept  a  customary 
tribute,  rendered  to  the  "  sublime  purity  of  the  Chris- 
tian Ethics" — which  "  all  admit."  This  vapid  homage 
will  not  satisfy  the  occasion.  I  require  from  a  reason- 
able antagonist,  an  acknowledgment  having  more  of 
historic  distinctness  about  it.  It  is  very  true,  and 
there  can  be  little  merit  in  not  denying  it,  that  a  high 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  145 

moral  tone  pervades  the  books  of  the  New  Testament. 
But  beyond  this,  if  we  possess  any  of  that  instinc- 
tive faculty  which  enables  a  reader  to  look  into  the 
bosom  of  a  writer,  through  the  glass  of  what  he  has 
written,  then  we  must  admit  that,  if  any  two  of  these 
writers  whose  individual  structure  of  mind  was  the 
most  dissimilar,  are  placed  side  by  side,  there  is  seen, 
working  at  the  depth  of  the  heart  of  each,  alike,  a 
moral  intensity — quick,  sensitive,  and  always  consistent 
in  its  utterance  ;  for  even  if  we  are  not  always  able  to 
discern  the  coherence  of  their  theological  reasonings — 
we  always  admit  the  harmony  of  their  ethical  conclu- 
sions. 

This  fact  I  shall  turn  to  account  in  the  course  of  my 
future  argument ;  for  it  can  never  be  made  to  consist 
with  any  of  these  suppositions  under  cover  of  which 
disbelief  takes  shelter. 


St.  Paul. 

Of  the  fourteen  Epistles  attributed  (and  rightly)  to 
St.  Paul,  as  many  as  Nine  take  their  place  along  with 
those  already  spoken  of,  as  containing  no  allusion  to 
miraculous  occurrences,  or  to  miraculous  gifts.  Of  these 
Nine,  four  are  addressed  to  individuals  who  were  the 
Writer's  intimates  and  colleagues.  Five  are  congrega- 
tional addresses,  sent  to  those  four  Societies  with  the 
religious  condition  of  which  the  writer  was,  in  the  main, 
well  content.  With  these  there  was  no  serious  contro- 
versy in  hand ;  nor  any  personal  contest,  making  it 
needful  for  him  to  sustain  his  apostolic  authority.     The 

o 


146        THE  RESTORATION  OP  BELIEF. 

faith  of  tliese  his  personal  friends,  and  of  these  attached 
and  obedient  converts,  was,  like  his  own — it  was  a  "full 
assurance  of  faith" — a  faith  to  which  miracles  could 
add  no  steadfastness.  So  it  was  that  when  no  motive 
suggested  a  reference  to  supernatural  attestations,  none 
appear.  ~~ 

But  as  to  six  of  the  nine,  now  in  view,  they  sparkle, 
as  one  might  say,  with  historic  crystallizations  ;  and 
every  paragraph  reflects  something  of  the  objects  that 
were  then  surrounding  the  writer.  St.  John  knew  just 
so  much  of  that  world  through  which  his  pilgrimage 
heavenward  lay,  as  might  be  forced  upon  his  notice 
by  urgent  motives  of  responsibility  toward  the  church. 
St.  Paul  knew  the  world  around  him,  as  those  know  it 
who  are  gifted  with  perceptions  the  most  intensely 
vivid.  The  persons,  the  transactions,  the  modes  of 
feeling  in  the  midst  of  which  he  was  moving,  he  was 
as  much  alive  to,  as  was  the  most  observant  of  his 
contemporaries.  He  has  penned  no  graphic  descrip- 
tions of  oriental  splendours,  or  of  the  Roman  greatness, 
but  as  often  as  he  needs  a  figure  in  illustration  of  his 
subject,  he  shows  that  he  could  have  done  well  what  he 
has  not  attempted. 

A  sheer  pedantry,  I  should  think  it,  to  profess  hesi- 
tation in  accepting  these  nine  Epistles  as  genuine. 
Unless  it  were  to  give  proof  of  critical  quixotism,  no 
one  would  have  gone  about  to  show  reason  for  any  such 
doubts.  But,  just  now,  it  is  enough  if  only  some  of 
them  are  genuine,  and  the  remainder  are  good  imita- 
tions. The  reasonings — if  they  deserve  to  be  so  de- 
signated— of  those  of  the  German  critics  who  have 
laboured  to  bring  the  three  pastoral  epistles  into  doubt, 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  147 

are  of  a  sort  that  might  well  be  adduced  in  illustration 
of  a  copious  and  not  unimportant  branch  of  intellectual 
philosophy — I  mean,  nationality  in  logic.  Germans 
reason  after  a  fashion  which  a  firmly  constituted  and 
cultured  English  mind  resents  as  an  insult  to  common 
sense.  Upon  the  merest  film  of  possibility  the  atten- 
uated intellectuality  of  Germany  soars  away  through 
thin  air.  Between  the  not-to-be-translated  mysteries 
of  its  abysses,  and  the  infinite  divisibilities  of  its 
heights,  the  mind  of  England  finds  no  terra  firma.  A 
writer  who  undertakes  the  task  of  defending  the  canon 
of  Holy  Scriptures  as  inspired,  must  needs  meet 
and  refute  these  refinements,  even  the  last  of  them  ; 
but  no  such  obligation  rests  upon  one  who  carries 
forward  an  argument  such  as  that  which  I  have  now 
in  hand. 

The  pastoral  epistles  connect  themselves  by  some 
incidental  allusions,  with  the  epistles  of  St.  James,  and 
of  St.  Jude,  for  we  find  in  them  a  portraiture  which 
must  at  once  be  recognised. 

A  particular  class  of  men  against  whom  one  apostolic 
writer  inveighs — to  whom  another  gives  battle,  and  to 
whom  another  transiently  alludes,  the  writer  of  the 
three  pastoral  epistles  so  depicts  as  that  they  may 
easily  be  identified.  They  were  every  where  found 
hovering  about  the  infant  society ;  and,  being  by 
temper  and  habit  noisy  and  obtrusive,  it  would  have 
been  an  easy  error  in  an  observant  polytheist  of  that 
time,  to  have  spoken  of  them  as  true  samples  of 
the  new  religion,  and  to  have  drawn  an  inference 
accordingly,  to  its  disadvantage.  We  may  just 
fancy  the  sarcastic  author  of  the   piece — nEPi   ths 


148  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

nEPErPiNOT  TEAETTiis — the  Voltaire  of  his  age,  if  he 
had  lived  a  century  earlier,  to  have  encountered  some 
of  these  men,  and  to  have  given  us  his  pithy  descrip- 
tion of  them.  We  may  suppose  him  to  say  that  he  had 
met  them  in  the  streets  of  Alexandria,  and  at  Ephesus, 
and  at  Antioch,  and  at  Corinth,  as  Avell  as  at  Rome ; 
and  he  had  found  them  too  in  Crete,  which  seemed  to 
be  their  head  quarters.  They  are  voluble,  contentious, 
acrimonious,  virulent  in  their  talk,  obtruding  every 
where  the  mystical  dogmas  of  their  religion  ;  and  cloak- 
ing always  their  real  purposes.  Insidious  are  they, 
and  fertile  in  expedients  for  drawing  the  unwary  into 
their  trap  ;  and  all  this  is  to  fill  their  bags  with  money. 
I  have  found  one  of  these  huckster  preachers,  with  his 
box  of  baubles  slung  over  his  shoulder,  working  his 
way  into  the  court  yard  of  a  great  house,  where  he  has 
contrived  to  draw  the  women  about  him — mistress  and 
maids,  whom  he  entertains  with  marvellous  stories,  and 
with  more  marvellous  dogmas  ;  Avhile,  at  frequent 
pauses,  he  puffs  the  contents  of  his  package,  where  you 
may  find  the  aromatics  of  Arabia — the  oils  of  Syria — 
the  silks,  the  silver  rings  and  chains,  the  gems  (not 
worth  a  button)  of  India,  the  tear-bottles,  the  signets, 
the  scarfs,  the  tiaras  of  Persia  : — and  all  as  worthless 
as  this  new  philosophy  itself — this  "  marvellous  wisdom 
of  the  Christians." 

Even  Lucian,  if  he  had  written  in  this  manner,  must 
have  admitted  that  those  "  Palestinian  priests  and 
scribes'  who  were,  as  he  does  say,  the  reputed  authors 
of  this  "  philosophy,"  had  done  their  utmost  to  de- 
nouncB  these  false  adherents,  and  to  expel  them  from 
the  Society.     "A   Christian    bishop" — writes    one   of 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  119 

these  Teaclicrs,  "  must  not  merely  be  a  man  of  blame- 
less life ;  but  of  such  energy  also  that  he  may  be  able 
to  convince  and  to  put  to  silence  those  disorderly  and 
noisy  persons — Jews  chiefly,  who,  with  sordid  inten- 
tions, teach  what  they  ought  not.  These  are  they  who 
subvert  whole  families,  and  while  they  profess  to  know 
God,  in  works  deny  him  : — abominable  are  they  and 
disobedient,  and  unto  every  good  work  reprobate." 
The  very  same  persons  are  they  which  one  finds 
"  creeping  into  houses,  and  leading  captive  silly  wo- 
men, laden  with  sins,  led  away  with  divers  lusts." 
This  plain  dealing,  and  more  to  the  same  purpose,  did 
not  long  fail  to  take  effect.  The  men — as  we  have 
just  seen — went  off — declared  themselves  open  enemies 
of  the  new  religion,  and  acted  as  such  thenceforward ; 
and  when  they  had  taken  this  turn,  we  find  them  using 
the  influence  they  had  already  acquired  in  every  city 
with  "ladies  of  rank"  to  move  persecution  against  the 
Chi-istian  teachers.  St.  Luke  courteously  calls  these 
ladies  " devout  and  honourable  women;"  yet  it  is  not 
certain  that  St.  Paul,  in  a  letter  of  pointed  advices 
addressed  to  his  friend,  might  not  be  thinking  even  of 
these — as  the  same  "  silly  women,"  who,  at  the  insti- 
gation of  the  Jews,  moved  the  magistrates  to  make  an 
ill  use  of  their  power,  driving  the  Apostles  from  city 
to  city,  or  leaving  them  without  redress  in  the  hands 
of  the  rabble. 

It  would  have  been  of  no  avail,  probably,  to  appeal 
to  the  candour  of  one  like  Lucian,  or  to  his  sense  of 
justice,  spreading  before  him  these  three  pastoral 
epistle,  as  evidence  that  he  had  misapprehended  the 
new  religion.  This  anticynic  was  too  thoroughly  cynical 

13* 


150  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

in  soul  and  temper  to  have  listened  to  any  such  chal- 
lenge, or  to  have  placed  himself  within  range  of  any 
generous  emotions.  But  we  of  this  time  profess  our- 
selves to  be  just,  candid,  and  discriminating,  and  there- 
fore may  be  challenged  in  any  case  to  give  a  verdict 
according  to  the  evidence,  even  although  it  be  in  con- 
travention of  our  previous  opinions  and  inward  wishes. 

What  then  are  the  conclusions  which,  looking  to 
these  three  epistles — and  to  nothing  else — are  war- 
rantable and  inevitable  ? — looking  to  these  three 
epistles,  and  not  looking  away  from  them,  to  the  right 
hand  or  to  the  left. — 

Although  they  now  stand  in  a  collection  of  writings 
that  are  stitched  in  the  same  cover,  this  juxta-position 
is  incidental  only.  They  have  indeed  reached  us  on 
the  same  float,  with  other  writings,  but  they  obtained  a 
lodgement  upon  it  on  a  showing  of  their  own  merits, 
singly.  Individually  they  have  passed  the  ordeal  of 
the  severest  criticism.  The  probability  that  they  are 
not  genuine  is  infinitely  small.  Even  if  one  of  the 
three  were  abjudged,  it  would  still  keep  its  place  in 
argument,  as  a  good  imitation  of  the  apostolic  manner. 

The  pretext  (illogical  as  it  would  be  to  urge  it)  that 
these  pieces  are  damaged — historically  by  an  admixture 
of  the  supernatural,  does  not  in  this  case  find  any  sort 
of  lodgement ;  for  here  there  is  no  such  admixture — the 
belief  of  Christ's  resurrection  being  always  allowed  for. 

But  although  it  would  be  illogical  to  advance  such  an 
exception  as  this — for  the  reality  of  the  Christian 
miracles  is  the  very  question  in  debate — yet  a  valid 
reason  would  present  itself  for  regarding  these,  or  any 
other  writings,  suspiciously,  if  they  pictured  a  fabulous 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF.         151 

condition  of  the  social  system; — or  if  it  appeai^ed  tliat 
the  writer,  surrounded  always  by  the  golden  haze  of  his 
own  fictitious  emotions,  could  never  see  things  around 
Lim  as  they  are.  Manifestly  it  is  not  so  here  :  human 
nature  is  plainly  spoken  of,  such  as  it  is,  always ;  and 
it  is  cared  for  accordingly  : — cautions,  provisions,  in- 
junctions, varied  and  repeated,  show  that  the  writer  was 
at  once  cool  in  his  judgment,  and  practical  in  his  views, 
as  well  as  immoveably  firm  in  principle. 

These  epistles  are  so  admonitory  in  their  drift  and 
tone  that,  as  to  what  might  be  the  virtues  of  the  Chris- 
tian people  of  that  time,  we  gather  no  information  from 
this  source.  From  Pliny's  letter  to  Trajan  we  should 
learn  more  that  is  favourable  to  the  purity  of  the  Chris- 
tian body,  than  we  do  from  Paul's  letters  to  Timothy 
and  Titus. 

"We  do  not  need  the  evidence  of  these  three  letters  to 
establish  the  fiict  of  the  existence  of  Christian  societies 
at  the  time  alleged.  But  the  purpose  they  do  serve  is 
to  show  that  Christianity,  as  interpreted  by  the  most 
zealous  and  intelligent  of  its  first  Teachers,  held  its 
place  in  the  world  as  an  earnest  Remonstrant  Force, 
opposed,  not  merely  to  religious  errors,  but  to  evasive 
pretexts,  to  illusions,  to  hypocrisies,  and  to  immoralities 
— Jewish  or  Gentile.  Especially  was  it  a  protest  against 
the  unintelligible  jargon — the  interminable  wranglings, 
the  sophistry  and  the  impiety  which  its  own  energy, 
simplicity  and  grandeur  had  woke  up,  on  every  side  of 
it,  as  its  assailants. 

If  the  mind  of  one  of  these  writers  seems  at  any 
time  unhinged,  while  he  is  making  his  protest  against 
these  assailants,  there  is  an  ingredient  mingling  itself 


152  THE   RESTORATION    OF    LELIEE. 

with  these  vivid  passages,  which  has  a  deep  meaning. 
It  is  the  characteristic  of  minds  that  are  habitually 
tranquil  and  conversant  with  what  is  great  and  pure, 
when  summoned  by  a  sense  of  duty  to  join  issue,  hand 
to  hand,  with  the  lawless  and  disorderly  of  this  world, 
to  revert,  as  if  with  a  rebound  of  the  soul,  to  the 
loftiest  themes ; — as  if  desiring  to  escape  from  a  scene 
of  confusion,  to  the  sanctuary  of  its  happy  and  wonted 
meditation.  Now  it  is  remarkable  that  the  most 
sublime  and  beautifully-worded  of  those  doxologies, 
and  of  those  condensed  enunciations  of  eternal  truths 
which  illumine  the  pages  of  the  New  Testament, 
are  found  embedded  in  the  very  midst  of  warm 
remonstrant  passages.  In  fact,  within  the  narrow 
limits  of  these  three  epistles — the  drift  of  which  is 
remonstrant,  there  occur  as  many  as  fourteen  mainly 
of  these  resplendent  parentheses. 

The  very  same  indication  of  spontaneous  reaction  is 
discoverable  in  the  epistles  of  St.  James,  and  of  St. 
Jude — both  of  them  reprobative  ; — among  these  are 
some  which  stand  unmatched  in  grandeur  of  idea,  and 
in  majestic  simplicity  of  expression. 


The  Epistle  to  Philemon  has  often — perhaps  often 
enough,  been  appealed  to  by  those  who  have  under- 
taken the  Christian  argument.  Nothing  can  be  more 
legitimate  than  such  an  appeal,  if  the  question  be — 
What  was  the  writer  ?  was  he  such  a  one  as  Paul  must 
have  become,  after  a  thirty  years'  apprenticeship  to 
illusion  and  unreality  ?     To  aflSrm  this,  or  even  to  har- 


THE    RESTORATION    OP    BELIEF.  153 

bour  such  a  thought  at  all,  is  not  so  much  a  wrong 
done  to  the  individual,  as  an  outrage  upon  human 
nature. 

This  letter  breathes  the  tranquil  rectitude  of  a  mind 
that  is  in  perfect  equipoise ;  and  that  is  used  to  take  its 
rest  among  the  gentlest  and  purest  emotions.  It  does 
not  touch  the  supernatural ;  but  it  is  in  a  genuine  sense 
itself  NATURAL  in  every  phase  of  it.  An  accord  of 
truth  vibrates  in  every  well-attuned  mind  at  the  hear- 
ing of  every  verse.  Even  if  the  writer  of  this  letter 
had  not  reminded  his  friend  that  he  was — "Paul  tho 
aged,''  we  might  surely  have  inferred  this  fact  from 
that  peculiarity  of  it  which  is  its  charm ;  for  it  shows 
the  mellowed  gentleness  of  a  spirit  that,  at  the  end  of 
years  of  labour  and  of  suffering^  has  survived  all  its 
vehemence,  but  none  of  its  sensibility. 

In  what  way  then  does  this  Epistle  avail  us  for  pur- 
poses of  argument  ?  It  peremptorily  avails  for  exclud- 
ing any  of  those  suppositions  touching  the  character  of 
the  writer  which  must  of  necessity  be  resorted  to  when, 
the  merely  historical  part  of  Christianity  being  granted 
as  real,  the  supernatural,  thereto  cohering,  is  attempted 
to  be  set  off  from  it  as  spurious. 


The  two  Epistles  to  the  Christians  of  Thessalonica 
are  of  early  date,  according  to  the  almost  unanimous 
verdict  of  modern  critics.  A  phrase  occurring  in  the 
second  pargraph  of  the  first  Epistle — tv  Bwufin,  had  at 
this  time  acquired  a  conventional  sense,  and  probably 
it  carried  an  allusion  to  those  miraculous  attestations 


154  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

of  the  Gospel  whicli  had  attended  its  first  promulga- 
tion in  that  region.  Otherwise,  or  hejond  the  insertion 
of  this  single  word,  these  two  epistles  do  not  contain  a 
reference,  direct  or  indirect,  to  any  such  events,  as  if 
then  occurring,  or  as  having  lately  occurred,  under  the 
eye  of  the  persons  addressed.  This  absence  of  the 
supernatural  is  full  of  significance  in  this  particular 
case. 

Inconsiderately,  in  relation  to  their  own  argument, 
those  writers  who  have  lately  assailed  Christianity  have 
noised  the  instance  of  Paul's  apparent  error  in  regard 
to  the  near  approach  of  the  consummation  of  all  things. 
It  has  been  said,  in  a  tone  of  exultation — "You  say 
Paul  was  an  inspired  man ;  and  yet  we  here  find  him 
professing  a  belief,  in  regard  to  which,  assuredly,  he  was 
utterly  mistaken." 

It  would  be  enough  to  reply  that  the  second  of  these 
Epistles,  written  for  the  very  purpose  of  coi'recting  the 
mistake  to  which  the  first  had  given  rise,  conclusively 
proves  that  the  writer,  notwithstanding  his  use  of  the 
personal  pronouns,  did  not  himself  entertain  any  such 
anticipation.  A  proper  inference  also  from  this  same 
instance  has  been  drawn  by  Paley,  in  proof  (if  proof 
were  needed)  of  the  genuineness  of  the  Epistle. 

But  a  sufficient  reply,  on  my  part,  would  be  this — 
that  the  objection  bears  wholly  upon  the  question  of 
Inspiration,  with  which  at  present,  I  have  nothing  to 
do.  I  am  looking  into  these  remains  of  apostolic  Chris- 
tianity, in  a  purely  historical  light,  and  not  at  all  as 
the  materials  of  Theology. 

Thus  then  let  us  handle  this  matter  with  all  freedom, 
and  see  Avhat  use  we  can  make  of  it,  on  either  side.    You 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  155 

take  the  language  of  the  Avriter  in  its  apparent  meaning, 
and  therefore  assume  that,  when  he  says  "  We  which 
are  alive  and  remain  unto  the  coming  of  the  Lord  " — 
and  again,  when  he  affirms  that  "We  shall  be  caught 
up  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air" — his  mind  was  filled 
with  the  glowing  idea  of  a  near  exchange,  for  himself 
and  his  converts,  of  pain,  want,  and  humiliation,  for 
eternal  blessedness  and  glory. 

Let  this  then  be  our  hypothesis.  The  writer  was 
himself  in  a  condition  so  helpless  that,  while  preaching 
the*  Gospel,  he  w\as  compelled  to  labour  night  and  day 
for  his  daily  bread,  and  at  the  same  time  he  was  under- 
going grievous  ill  treatment,  at  the  risk  of  life.  Those 
to  whom  he  wrote,  being  mostly  of  humble  rank,  were 
also  enduring  cruel  persecution  at  the  hands  of  their 
Gentile  neighbours,  on  account  of  their  religion.  Such 
being  the  present  position  of  the  Teacher,  and  of  the 
people,  he  holds  before  them  the  belief  that,  midway  in 
the  tranquil  hours  of  some  day,  not  very  distant — earth 
itself  should  tremble  at  the  blast  of  the  archangel,  and 
should  echo  the  notes  of  the  trump  of  God,  and  the 
shouts  of  celestial  myriads : — The  Lord  himself,  with 
the  host  that  do  his  pleasure,  drawing  near  to  earth, 
and  rescuing  thence  his  faithful  followers,  carrying  them 
off  to  immortal  joys  ! 

It  was  no  wonder  that  simple  people  who  thus  under- 
stood (or  misunderstood)  their  Teacher,  should  be  much 
"  shaken  in  mind,"  by  such  a  prospect;  or  that  some  of 
them,  breaking  away  from  their  ordinary  occupations, 
as  unnecessary,  unbecoming  their  high  expectations, 
should  wander  up  and  down — "  working  not  at  all" — 
but  busying  themselves  in  every  thing  rather  than  their 


156  THE   RESTORATION    OF   RELIEF. 

proper  employments.  This  was  quite  according  to  the 
course  of  things,  and  some  recent  instances  of  a  similar 
kind  might  easily  be  mentioned. 

Yet  it  is  certain  as  to  the  propagator  of  this  per- 
turbing belief,  that  he  had  not  himself  in  any  degree  lost 
the  balance  of  his  own  mind.  A  tone  of  calm  affection, 
and  of  a  subdued  feeling — the  consequence -of  long  con- 
tinued suffering — pervades  both  epistles,  this  first  espe- 
cially, which  is  distinguished  also  by  the  earnestness  of 
its  admonitions,  as  to  conduct  and  temper,  in  purity, 
rectitude,  sobriety,  gentleness,  and  avoidance  of  every 
guise  or  semblance  of  evil. 

If  in  any  case  we  may  trust  to  the  universal  prin- 
ciples of  human  nature,  we  may  confidently  affirm  that 
a  mind  which  while  it  is  filled  with  anticipations  of  the 
most  animating  sort,  is  yet  recollective  of  all  proprieties, 
and  careful  on  those  points  of  duty  which  are  not  of  an 
exciting  kind,  must  be  a  strong  mind,  not  a  weak  one— ^ 
a  well  regulated  mind,  not  one  that  is  habitually  de- 
ranged by  some  conscious  moral  obliquity. 

According  to  the  hypothesis  now  before  us,  Paul  was 
looking,  every  day,  for  a  triumphant  apotheosis  of  him- 
self and  his  associates,  amid  the  exulting  shouts  of  the 
heavenly  hosts ; — and  yet  he  shows  himself  to  be  as 
regardful  of  the  obligations  of  this  present  life  as  if  a  dull 
century  of  its  trials  and  labours  had  been  guaranteed 
to  him.  No  ingenuity  will  avail  to  make  this  idea  of 
the  man  consist  with  any  of  those  suppositions  upon 
which  we  are  thrown  if,  while  we  accept  the  mere  facts 
of  Christianity  (which  it  is  impossible  to  deny)  we 
attempt  to  rid  ourselves  of  the  supernatural,  therewith 
connected ;    for    those    suppositions    imply    that    the 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF.         157 

Apostles  were  men  who  strangely  mingled  in  their  men- 
tal structure,  imbecility,  extravagance,  and  a  blunted 
sense  of  the  obligations  of  truth. 

But  now  I  relinquish  the  advantage  put  into  my 
hand  by  an  inconsiderate  opponent,  and  assume  the 
contrary  supposition,  which  I  take  to  be  manifestly  the 
true  one — namely,  that,  in  writing  the  first  of  these 
epistles,  St.  Paul  did  not  entertain  the  belief  which,  at 
a  glance,  his  language  may  seem  to  express. 

Then  I  ask,  how  was  it  that  he  did  not  entertain  this 
belief?  Ideas  of  this  order  were,  as  we  see,  actually 
present  to  his  mind,  and  they  furnished  the  grounds  on 
which  he  took  comfort  for  himself,  and  imparted  it  to 
others.  Now  with  minds  imbued  with  religious  concep- 
tions the  tendency  has  always  shown  itself  to  bring 
down  the  supernatural,  if  possible,  upon  tJte  present 
Jwur.  Even  highly  cultured  minds  have  been  seen  to 
surrender  themselves  to  this  powerful  impulse — "to- 
morrow, next  month — next  year,  or  such  a  year,  named, 
which  we  may  live  to  sec — these  glories  shall  brighten 
the  earth  on  which  we  tread."  Thus,  from  age  to  age, 
have  sincere  but  unstable  souls  been  wont  to  beguile 
themselves  on  the  field  of  prophetical  interpretation. 
Not  so  St.  Paul  (on  the  supposition  now  before  us). 
Yet  why  not  ?  If  we  say,  because  his  mind  Avas  pre- 
eminently vigorous,  and  was  always  in  the  soundest  con- 
dition ;  if  this  be  the  reply,  I  am  content ;  and  shall 
not  fail  to  draw  an  inference  accordingly.  If  the  reply 
be — The  actual  course  of  this  world's  affairs,  involving 
a  slow  development  of  evil  principles,  had  been  con- 
veyed to  him  superiiaturally ,  that  is  to  say,  by  the 
teaching  of  IIim  who  alone  looks  on  through  the  lapse 

14 


158  THE    RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

of  ages ;  thcii  also  I  am  content ; — for  such  an  answer 
(the  only  true  and  admissible  answer)  embraces  every 
thing  on  the  side  of  Belief.  It  is  beyond  my  pro- 
vince to  advert  particularly  to  that  prediction  of  the 
second  epistle  by  means  of  which  the  Apostle  corrects 
the  mistake  into  which  his  friends  had  fallen  :  never- 
theless this  prediction,  by  its  boldness,  its  gravity,  and 
the  unlikelihood  of  its  fulfilment,  bespeaks  its  own 
reality.  It  has  been  said  that  this  prediction,  coupled 
with  another  occurring  in  the  Epistle  to  Timoth}^,  are 
only  notable  instances  of  sagacity,  forecasting  the  ten- 
dencies of  human  affairs.  Wonderful  indeed  would  be 
such  an  instance  of  long-sightedness !  but  I  should  be 
apt  to  think  that  a  mind  Avhich  could  thus  penetrate 
the  dark  unknown  of  centuries  to  come,  must  have  seen 
that  a  religion  pretending  to  be  supernatural,  and  which 
yet  was  not  so  in  fact,  would  soon  exhaust  its  meagre 
resources,  and  disappear.  Is  it  then  our  supposition, 
that  an  intellect  of  the  highest  order  lent  itself  to  an 
enterprise  Avhich  it  saw  to  be  baseless  and  desperate  ? 


The  absence  of  all  allusion  to  miraculous  attesta- 
tions in  the  Epistle  to  the  Epiiesians,  is  a  fact  deserv- 
ing of  particular  attention. 

The  captious  exceptions  of  De  Wette  have  at  length 
been  overruled,  and  the  genuineness  of  this  Epistle  can 
scarcely  be  said  to  stand  liable  to  a  shade  of  reasonable 
doubt.  Following  the  arbitrary  division  of  the  Received 
Text,  we  have  before  us  155  clauses,  or  separable  mem- 
bers of  a  continuous  flow  of  thought.  Of  these  verses 
QQ  convey  the  writer's  fervent  fc'clings,  as  in  presence 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  159 

of  the  loftiest  themes  of  Christian  Theology  ;  89  verses 
are  occupied,  either  immediately  with  pointed  ethical 
injunctions,  or  with  those  reasons  and  motives  that 
take  a  bearing  upon  the  ordinary  behaviour  of  Chris- 
tians; but  is  not  so  much  as  one  clause,  or  phrase,  does 
the  writer  turn  aside  to  mention  miracles,  or  miraculous 
endowments.  And  yet  there  are  two  places  in  this 
epistle  in  which  such  an  allusion  would  have  seemed 
quite  natural.  The  first  of  these  is  (iv.  11,)  where  the 
functions  which  were  then  in  exercise  in  the  Church  are 
enumerated,  among  which  the  power  of  working  mira- 
cles does  not  find  a  place;  although,  in  a  parallel 
passage  of  another  epistle  (1  Cor.  xii.  10 — 28)  these 
powers  are  expressly  named.  The  other  place  is  that 
occurring  toward  the  close  (vi.  10,  et  seq.)  in  which  the 
writer  sets  forth,  in  vivid  figurative  language,  the  ar- 
duous position  which  those  occupy  who,  in  making  pro- 
fession of  the  Gospel,  oppose  themselves  to  the  crafty 
and  to  the  open  violence,  not  only  of  men  around  them, 
but    of    invisible    adversaries— more    to    be    dreaded. 

Against  these  powers— seen  and  unseen,  the  Chris- 
tian soldier  is  exhorted  to  hold  his  ground,  armed  (the 
fanatic  would  have  said — with  Heaven's  own  thunder- 
bolt, and  with  those  "  fiery  darts  "  which  would  bring 
omnipotence  to  bear  upon  the  artillery  of  hell)  armed, 
says  the  Apostle,  with  Truth,  Rectitude,  Peace,  Faith, 
the  hope  of  Salvation,  and  the  Word  of  God  ;  for  these 
are  the  defences  and  the  weapons  which  a  genuine 
wisdom  approves. 

Quite  of  a  piece  with  the  spirit  of  this  closing  advice 
are  the  preceding  admonitions,  in  the  compass  of  which 
each  of   the   principal   points   of   homely  morality  is 


160        THE  RESTORATION  OP  BELIEF, 

touched  upon,  in  the  very  plainest  form  of  words,  and 
in  a  tone  of  earnest  solemnity.  But  I  hear  you  say, 
sarcastically—"  It  appears  then  that  the  Christian  folk 
of  those  Apostolic  times  needed  much  looking  to,  as  to 
their  morals."  I  reply — It  does  so  appear  ;  but  then, 
if  they  needed  it,  they  had  it  ;  and  this  fact  is  enough 
in  relation  to  my  present  purpose. 

What  we  find  is  this— That  the  first  Teachers  of 
Christ's  religion,  though  they  might  forget,  for  a  time, 
their  own  wonder-working  endowments,  never  wrote  a 
letter  in  which  they  forgot  the  main  import  of  their 
religion ;  which  was  to  uproot  the  usurpation  of  Satan  in 
this  world  ; — and  this  usurpation  was  to  be  resisted  by 
means  that  are  purely  spiritual  and  moral. 

This  absence  of  the  supernatural,  in  the  instance  be- 
fore us,  has  however  yet  another  meaning. 

The  QQ  verses  already  referred  to,  make  up  a  cluster 
of  parentheses,  piled  one  upon  another  by  the  writer's 
fulness  of  feeling.  He  has  almost  forgotten  his  galling 
chain  (vi.  20) ;  he  has  forgotten  the  Eoman  soldier  at 
his  side,  and  the  prison ; — he  has  forgotten  earth  and 
its  trials,  as  well  as  its  pomps.  As  if  with  a  seraph's 
wing  he  has  reached  the  upper  heavens,  and  thence  he 
measures,  at  a  glance,  the  scheme  of  human  salvation, 
stretching  out  far  into  the  eternity  past ;  and  far  into 
a  bright  eternity  to  come.  On  either  hand  of  this 
shining  pathway  through  the  infinite,  he  sees  a  bright 
array  of  "  principalities  and  powers,"  observant  of 
this  mystery  of  redemption — long  veiled,  and  now 
revealed. 

While   thus  musing   upon    objects    so  vast,  was  the 
writer's  state  of  mind  such  as  we  must  approve,  or  not  ? 


THE    RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  161 

Were  his  feelings — real  or  illusory  ?  If  they  were  of 
the  latter  class,  and  if  there  be  any  coherence  in 
human  nature,  meditations  so  lofty,  indulged  by  one 
"who  at  the  same  time  believed  himself  to  stand  near  to 
the  Supernatural — as  we  find  he  did,  would  infallibly  have 
gone  off  upon  this  high  ground ; — here  he  would  have 
exhibited  himself  as  in  correspondence  with  heaven  by 
means  of  those  supernatural  endowments  which  were 
at  his  command. 

How  is  it  in  fact  that  he  descends  to  resume  his  ter- 
restrial standing-place  ?  He  has  just  sealed  his  lofty 
meditations  with  a  doxology;  and  then  a  returning 
consciousness  of  the  sombre  things  of  earth  takes  this 
turn — "  I  therefore  a  prisoner  of  the  Lord  beseech  you 
that  ye  walk  worthy  of  the  vocation  wherewith  ye  are 
called — with  all  lowliness  and  meekness,  with  long-suf- 
fering, forbearing  one  another  in  love." 

Adhering  then  to  our  document  the  case  stands  thus 
— On  the  one  hand  bright  meditations  did  not  lead  the 
writer  of  this  epistle  toward  the  Supernatural ; — they 
did  not,  BECAUSE  HE  AVAS  NO  ENTHUSIAST  :  on  the  other 
hand,  gloomy  meditations  did  not  drive  him  toward  the 
Supernatural ; — they  did  not,  because  he  was  no 
Fanatic.  He  kept  close  to  the  course  of  practical 
wisdom  and  virtue — because,  in  fact,  he  was  in  the 
highest  sense,  wise,  virtuous,  and  sound-minded. 


Toward  the  Christian  people  at  Philtppi,  St.  Paul's 
feelings  were  those  of  warm  affection,  gratitude,  and  ap- 
proval. The  personal  allusions  in  this  Epistle,  addressed 

14* 


1G2  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

to  this  Society,  are  of  the  most  peculiar  kind ;  and 
these,  along  with  the  mass  of  external  testimonies, 
place  it  far  out  of  the  range  of  captious  exceptions. 
Once  again,  then,  referring  to  my  protest  against 
violence,  I  affirm  that — violence  not  admitted — this 
morsel  of  Greek,  now  under  my  eye — this  six  pages 
of  antiquity,  is  as  much  a  Reality  as  is  any  other 
remains  of  past  time  which  this  present  time  conserves, 
and  trusts  to.  If  I  may  not  say  so  much  as  this,  show 
me,  in  accordance  with  the  authentic  rules  of  historical 
criticism,  why  not. 

In  this  composition  the  writer,  who  was  then  reach- 
ing the  term  of  his  labours — the  religion  which  he  had 
taught  having  by  this  time  wrought  the  whole  of  its 
proper  effect  upon  his  mind — freely  opens  his  heart  to 
our  inspection ;  and  in  doing  so  he  incidentally  conveys 
the  elements  of  Christianity  itself,  and  exhibits  its 
bearing  upon  human  nature. 

Now  I  wish  that  we  could  read  this  one  document 
of  the  Apostolic  times  as  if  not  an  atom  beside  had 
come  down  to  us :  let  us  take  it  as  if  it  were  our 
only  means  of  forming  an  opinion  concerning  that 
religion  of  which  we  possess  copious  information  as  it 
had  come  to  hold  a  place  in  the  world,  in  the  age  of 
the  Antonines. 

Whatever  that  breadth  of  facts  required  us  to  ima- 
gine, as  belonging  to  the  centre  fact — the  rise  of  this 
scheme,  we  find  to  be  condensed  within  the  limits  of 
this  one  document.  There  is  first  the  mysterious  dig- 
nity of  the  Person  to  whom,  on  every  page  of  the 
later  Christian  writings,  a  reference  occurs,  in  terms 
of  grave   reverence,    and   devout   affection.      Lucian, 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  163 

and  otlier  writers  of  his  age  and  class,  assure  us  that 
the  zeal  and  assiduity  of  the  Christians  of  his  time  in 
serving  or  rescuing  one  another  was  incredible — afiYixwov 

8s  'titb  iOLXOi  tTiihuiXvvv'ta.ti,  irinhav  T't  totZv-tov  yivfj-fai,  Srjfjioaiov 
ol'Kpvgtiavoc  avfifoftav  Ttoiovjxsvoc   ■to    rtpay^ua,    Ttavta  ixivovv, 

t'laprtaTat  }iiipu,iJ.ivoi  aviov.  To  US  this  need  not  seem 
strange,  for  the  motives  which  prompted  such  labours 
of  love  had  a  foundation  in  the  Christian  theology  of 
surpassing  intensity.  The  .vriter  of  this  epistle  says  to 
his  friends  at  Philippi — "  Do  not,  every  one  of  you,  be 
regardful  of  his  personal  interests,  but  let  each  be 
mindful  of  the  welfare  of  others :  —in  a  word,  let  that 
disposition  be  in  you  which  was  in  Christ  Jesus,  who 
being  in  the  form  of  God  thought  it  no  wrong  to  be 
equal  to  God ;  and  yet  emptied  himself  (of  this  dignity) 
and  took  the  form  of  a  servant ;"  and  this  to  accomplish 
our  salvation. 

It  is  testified  abundantly,  by  their  enemies,  concern- 
ing the  Christians  of  the  martyr  age,  that  they  cheer- 
fully submitted  to  spoliations,  and  were  even  prodigal 
of  life.  Celsus  mocks  them  on  this  very  ground  ;  he 
says,  though  making  much  of  the  body  in  their  doc- 
trine of  the  resurrection,  they  were  ready — 7td%cv  6'  ai>t6 
pUtsiv  aij  xoxdatii,  wj  ati-i^ov — when  challenged  to  renounce 
their  hope  of  immortality.  This  is  as  it  should  be,  if 
they  had  truly  imbibed  the  spirit  of  their  religion  as  at 
first  taught  them ;  for  St.  Paul  had  said — "  Yea  doubt- 
less I  reckon  all  things  as  a  loss,  for  the  excellency  of 
the  knowledge  of  Christ  Jesus  my  Lord ;  for  whom  I 
have  suifered  the  loss  of  all  things,  if  by  any  means  I 
might  attain  to  the  resurrection  of  the  dead." 

Pliny  assures  us  that  he  found  the  Christians  of  his 


164  THE   RESTORATION   OP   BELIEF. 

province  to  be  a  harmless  folk,  binding  themselves  to 
do  whatever  is  right,  and  to  abstain  from  whatever  is 
wrong.  So  it  should  be,  for,  from  the  first,  they  had 
been  thus  instructed.  "  As  to  any  thing  further  my 
brethren  (which  I  might  wish  to  say,  this  is  enough). 
"Whatever  things  (in  profession  or  behaviour)  are  true, 
whatever  things  are  seemly,  whatever  things  are  just, 
whatever  things  are  pure,  whatever  things  are  loving, 
whatever  things  are  well-reputed,  if  there  be  any  thing 
of  manly  virtue,  if  any  thing  praiseworthy,  make  such 
things  your  study." 

And  thus,  in  the  main,  did  Christians  behave  them- 
selves in  those  times  concerning  which  our  information 
is  ample — their  enemies  being  their  witnesses ;  and 
thus — as  we  now  see,  had  they  been  taught  from  the 
very  first.  There  is  here  before  us  an  arch — all  in  one 
style,  one  jamb  of  which  has  its  resting  place  in  the 
age  of  Trajan,  the  other  in  the  time  of  Nero. 

In  this  Epistle  we  find  a  lofty  theology — a  bright 
immortality,  a  pure  and  a  finished  morality,  a  loving 
fervour,  and  a  sharply  struck  individuality  ;  but  there 
are  no  miracles.  Nevertheless  there  seemed  room  for 
one,  inasmuch  as  the  writer  had  looked  for  "  sorrow 
upon  sorrow"  in  the  dangerous  illness  of  his  attendant 
friend — Epaphroditus — a  calamity  he  had  not  thought 
himself  able  to  avert  by  supernatural  means ;  for 
these  were  at  his  command  only  for  a  single  and 
clearly-defined  purpose — the  attestation  of  his  message. 
Granted  for  this  one  purpose,  no  allusion  to  them  is 
found  in  epistles  addressed  to  those  who  needed  no 
such  assurances. 

The  Epistle  to  the  Christians  of  Colosse  presents 


THE    KESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  165 

the  same  elements,  and  sustains  the  same  inferences  : 
there  is  the  same  theology,  as  to  the  Person  (i.  15), 
the  same  hope  (i.  12,  iii.  4) :  the  same  morality  (iii.  5, 
et  seq.) :  and  throughout  it,  the  same  fervour  and  in- 
dividuality. It  presents  however  this  further  charac- 
teristic of  the  writer's  temper  and  principles — namely, 
a  decisive  protest  against  that  specious  pietism  which 
so  easily  enslaves  feeble  minds  by  its  abstracted 
mysticism,  and  its  ascetic  practices,  and  its  supersti- 
tious observances.  Yet  the  writer  had  no  contention 
with  this  Society  ;  and  the  epistle  contains  no  allusion 
to  miracles. 


GENERAL   CONCLUSION   AS   TO    THE   NON- SUPERNATURAL 

EPISTLES. 

It  appears  then  that  these  apostolic  writers  though 
thej  much  more  often  omit  the  supernatural  than 
advert  to  it,  yet  are  never  found  to  omit  the  pre- 
ceptive element  in  their  addresses  to  their  converts. 
They  well  knew  that  it  is  not  by  miracles  that  men 
are  to  be  trained  to  virtue.  Now,  in  this,  I  see  just 
that  which  one  observes  in  the  instance  of  a  careful 
and  industrious  husbandman.  He  has  been  looking 
upon  his  parched  fields ;  but  in  a  moment  Heaven's 
flash  lights  up  the  landscape  :  Heaven's  voice  peals 
round  the  skies  ;  Heaven's  copious  rain  comes  down, 
a  life-giving  torrent.  This  seasonable  help  the  hus- 
bandman could  not  command  ;  but  when  it  has  come, 
it  is  his  part  to  follow  it  up  :  he  does  not  talk  of  the 
fertilizing  thunder  shower,  but  he  goes  to  work  upon 
his  field  with  a  new  animation.  So  it  is  with  the  apos- 
tolic writers  :  they  say  little  of  miracles ;  but  they 
say  much  of  behaviour  :  they  plant,  they  sow,  they 
root  up  every  weed  :  and  it  is  God  that  giveth  the 
increase. 

Besides,  these  New  Testament  writers  had  read  the 
Old  Testament  history  ;  and  they  had  gathered  from 
(IGG) 


THE    RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  167 

it  a  lesson  of  ■wisdom  by  which  thej  ruled  their  own 
conduct,  as  teachers  of  religion.  They  held  that 
the  things  which  had  befallen  the  Israelitish  people 
had  been  recorded  "  for  our  learning,"  and  from  this 
history  they  drew  the  inference  that,  although  mira- 
cles serve  to  bring  the  teacher  into  his  position  of 
authority,  as  God's  minister,  the  work  on  account  of 
which  he  has  been  so  installed  has  to  be  carried  for- 
ward irrespectively  of  miracles.  The  Apostles  were 
well  conversant  with  those  historical  odes  in  which  the 
obduracy  of  the  people  is  the  recurrent  theme.  They 
had  listened  to  the  verse,  "  Marvellous  things  did  He 
in  the  sight  of  our  forefathers,  in  the  land  of  Egypt  : 
even  in  the  field  of  Zoan  ;"  and  they  had  taken  up 
the  response — "  Yet  for  all  this  they  sinned  more 
against  him,  and  provoked  the  most  High  in  the  wil- 
derness"— "  they  believed  not  his  wondrous  works" — 
"  They  forgat  God  their  Saviour,  Avho  had  done  so 
great  things  in  Egypt :  wondrous  things  in  the  land 
of  Ham  ;  and  fearful  things  by  the  Red  Sea." 

That  these  instructive  passages  in  the  history  of  their 
nation  were  present  to  the  minds  of  the  Christian  teach- 
ers we  have  their  own  repeated  assurance  (1  Cor.  x., 
Acts,  vii.  51,  xiii.  xxviii.  25 ;  and  Hebrews  iii.  7,  8,  9) ; 
and  that  they  had  put  a  true  and  wise  construction  upon 
these  instances  we  have  this  palpable  evidence,  that 
w^hile  their  writings  breathe  throughout  an  intense  fer- 
vour, directed  toward  the  one  object  of  promoting  and 
securing  the  personal  and  social  virtue  of  the  people 
committed  to  their  care,  they  do  not  in  a  single  instance 
throw  the  stress  of  any  ethical  argument  upon  the  super- 
tiatural    attestations    of    their    message.      Throughout 


1G8  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

the  epistles  morality  is  made  to  rest  upon  the  solid  basis 
of  universal  and  permanent  religious  considerations. 

I  have  said  that  the  question  of  Christianity  is  strictly 
determinable.      Thus  far,  it  clearly  is  so. 

When  the  massive  literary  remains  of  the  period 
already  referred  to — Christian — non-Christian,  and  anti- 
Christian — are  taken  as  evidence  of  the  existence,  wide- 
extension,  and  general  quality  of  the  new  religion,  in- 
structed men  will  not  be  found  to  be  materially  at 
variance  as  to  the  palpable  facts  that  are  thus  estab- 
lished. These  facts  are  out  of  question  among  edu- 
cated persons  :  but  they  lead  us  to  look  back  toward 
that  moment  when  this  religion  was  making  its  earliest 
assaults  upon  the  religions  around  it,  and  upon  the 
immoralities  of  the  times.  The  result  of  this  quest  for 
early  materials  is  the  production  of  some  ten  or  twelve 
compositions,  or  more,  purporting  to  be  addresses  or 
official  circulars  issued  by  the  first  teachers  and  preach- 
ers of  the  Gospel.  These  letters  having  come  down 
from  the  time  of  their  alleged  production,  amply  veri- 
fied in  the  modes  admitted  to  be  valid  in  such  cases,  are 
submitted  to  the  strictest  scrutiny,  which  modern  criti- 
cism, in  its  mood  of  utmost  severity,  has  been  able  to 
effect.  This  process  is  continued  through  a  period  of 
sixty  years ;  not  because  the  case  is  in  itself  ambigu- 
ous ;  but  mainly  for  this  reason,  that  each  rising  man 
aspiring  to  practice  in  this  court,  and  ambitious  to  dis- 
tinguish himself  by  taking  his  share  in  the  conduct  of  a 
suit  that  draws  the  eyes  of  the  Avorld,  has  hunted  the 
ground  anew  for  pretexts  on  which  to  rest  his  reputa- 
tion. 

I  am  keeping  my  eye  upon  those  fourteen  epistles  to 


THE    RESTORATION     OF     BELIEF.  169 

which  reference  has  been  made  in  the  preceding  pages ; 
and  -which  I  have  named  the  Non-Supeenatural  ; 
and  am  now  about  to  call  your  attention  to  the  Seven, 
in  which  an  affirmation  of,  or  allusion  to,  miracles,  some- 
where appear.  It  may  be  well,  however,  in  stepping 
across  from  the  one  class  of  writings  to  the  other,  to 
bring  under  your  eye  the  proportion,  as  to  mass,  which 
the  one  bears  to  the  other,  in  a  more  exact  manner  than 
in  stating  it,  as  I  have  done,  roundly,  as  two  to  one. 

The  Canonical  Epistles,  which  are  twenty-one,  are 
broken  up,  in  the  Received  Text,  into  2767  verses.  It 
matters  not  whether  this  subdivision  has  been  well  or 
ill  effected.  Of  this  number  a  large  proportion,  which 
it  is  not  easy  to  define,  has  reference  to  the  circum 
stances  or  history  of  the  writers,  or  of  the  persons 
addressed ;  and  is  of  a  purely  historic  quality.  This  mass 
constitutes,  in  fact,  a  sort  of  substratum,  firm  in  its 
adhesion,  part  to  part,  and  available  for  any  of  those 
purposes  which,  in  an  argument  on  Evidence,  it  is 
usual  to  accomplish  by  such  aid. 

Another  portion  of  the  mass,  the  quantity  of  which  it 
is  not  important  to  ascertain,  is  occupied  with  theologi- 
cal disquisition,  or  argument,  or  the  enunciation  of 
principles  that  are  purely  religious.  About  one  thou- 
sand of  the  verses  are  either  directly  preceptive,  bear- 
ing especially  and  pointedly  upon  the  virtues  and  vices, 
or  they  are  abstractedly  preceptive,  and  properly  ethi- 
cal. Such  are  the  injunctions — "  Be  ye  holy  (saith 
God)  for  I  am  holy" — "  Without  holiness  no  man  shall 
see  the  Lord;"  and  many  of  the  same  sort. 

I  now  set  oif  one  chapter  entire,  which  is  directive, 
relating  to  the  exercise  of  the  "gift  of  tongues;"— this 

15 


170  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

passage,  not  included  then,  of  the  whole  number  of 
canonical  verses,  namely  2767,  not  more  than  Sixteen, 
or,  if  we  include  some  contextual  portions,  let  us  say 
T'WENTY  verses,  contain  affirmations  or  allusions  imply- 
ing miraculous  events,  as  known  to  the  writer,  and  for 
the  reality  of  which  he  must  be  held  to  pledge  his  repu- 
tation. Presented  therefore  in  the  one  mode,  the  pro- 
portion between  the  two  masses  is  as  two  to  one.  Pre- 
sented in  the  other  form,  which  is  the  most  exact,  it  is 
as  one  to  138. 

Perhaps  this  state  of  the  facts  may  not  hitherto  have 
occurred  to  you  :  but  do  not  misunderstand  my  inten- 
tion in  thus  presenting  it.  Do  not  imagine  that  I  am 
clearing  the  ground,  as  far  as  I  can,  in  preparation  for 
a  retreat ;  or  am  intending  to  creep  out  of  the  miracu- 
lous through  a  loophole  of  this  sort. 

In  entertaining  any  such  a  supposition  you  would  do 
me  a  great  wrong.  What  I  am  preparing  the  way  for  is 
an  affirmation  of  the  Miraculous  in  the  boldest,  most 
ample,  and  uncompromising  manner ;  but  meantime  this 
fact  of  the  vast  disproportion  of  the  two  masses — for 
which  perhaps  you  were  not  prepared,  as  attaching  to 
the  epistolary  part  of  the  Canon,  I  hold  to  be  fraught 
with  argumentative  meaning  of  a  very  conclusive  kind ; 
for  it  will  consist  with  no  other  hypothesis  than  this, 
That,  conversant  as  they  affirm  themselves  to  have  been, 
with  supernatural  events,  these  writers — not  one  or  two 
of  them,  but  all — were  right-minded  men,  and  were 
exempt,  in  a  most  unusual  degree,  from  the  ordinary 
religious  tendency  to  run  into,  to  run  after,  or  to  drive 
forward,  those  excitements  which  the  Supernatural  sup- 
plies. 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  171 

I  might  now,  and  as  thus  more  accurately  computed, 
bring  forward  the  body  of  historic  materials,  using 
more  than  ninety-nine  parts  of  it  out  of  a  hundred,  as 
standing  clear  of  every  pretext  of  exception,  on  the 
ground  of  the  admixture  of  the  miraculous.  This  ninety- 
nine  per  cent,  forms  a  body  of  vastly  greater  bulk  than 
is  required  for  beai'ing  up,  and  for  giving  consistency 
to,  the  facts  of  the  widely-based  Christianity  of  the  age 
of  the  Antonines.  This  central  mass  satisfies  the  con- 
ditions that  are  demanded  by  the  facts  belonging  to  the 
later  period.  All  the  phenomena  of  that  period  are 
embraced  and  satisfied;  every  thing  is  explicable.  The 
religion,  seen  at  its  rise,  is  found  to  be  a  system  of 
motives,  principles,  and  precepts  which  we  find  to  have 
been  brought  into  act  in  the  martyr  age,  throughout  the 
extent  of  the  Roman  world. 

The  documents  of  the  later  time  are  so  copious  and 
so  heterogeneous  that  aii  exceptive  criticism  may  do  its 
worst  without  aflfecting  any  argument  dependent  upon 
it.  The  documents  of  the  inchoative  period,  though 
small  in  bulk,  have  come  forth  from  a  "  furnace  of  earth, 
heated  seven  times,"  and  they  stand  as  approved.  The 
later  dated  and  voluminous  mass  takes  its  bearing  — 
groining  down  upon  the  centre  column,  and  finding 
there  its  true  support,  whether  considered  as  so  much 
masonry,  or  as  so  much  architecture  ;  it  is  all  solid,  and 
it  is  all  in  keeping. 

But  now  to  affirm  that  this  one  per  cent,  of  the  Su- 
pernatural vitiates  the  mass  in  the  midst  of  which  it 
occurs,  is  just  to  beg  the  question  upon  which  we  are 
joining  issue. 


172  THE   KESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

You  say  Miracles  never  have  occurred ;  if  so,  those 
who  affirm  them  must  not  be  listened  to. 

But  satisfy  me  in  any  "way  you  please,  either  of  evi- 
dence, or  of  abstract  reasoning,  that  they  have  not,  and 
then  we  are  agreed.  As  to  the  evidence,  it  is  immove- 
able ;  and  as  to  your  abstract  reasoning,  it  is^  in  my 
view,  a  transparent  sophism. 


THE   SEVEN   APOSTOLIC   EPISTLES    WHICH   AFFIRM   OR 
ALLUDE   TO    MIRACLES. 

These  are  five  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles — namely,  to  the 
Romans,  the  Corinthians,  first  and  second ;  to  the 
Galatians,  and  to  the  Hebrews — here  assumed  to  be 
his,  and  the  two  Epistles  of  St.  Peter. 

These  compositions,  when  compared  with  the  Four- 
teen, are  they  of  inferior  pretensions,  as  to  genuineness 
and  authenticity?  One  of  them  excepted,  it  is  not  at 
all  so.  Do  they  lock-in  less  firmly  with  the  historic 
mass  with  which  they  stand  connected  ?  This  is  far 
from  being  the  fact.  Four  of  the  Pauline  Epistles  so 
cohere  with  the  nine  of  the  Non- Supernatural  class  that 
no  critic  would  attempt  to  sever  them.  Read  the  two 
epistles  to  the  Corinthians,  and  the  epistle  to  the 
Churches  of  Galatia ;  read  them  in  the  Greek,  and  do 
your  utmost,  as  you  go  on,  to  persuade  yourself  that 
they  are  any  thing  else  than  what  they  profess  to  be. 
Even  the  TUbingen  critics  have  here  confessed  them- 
selves foiled.  No  scholar  who  is  not  crazed,  or,  what  is 
worse,  half  crazed,  and  therefore  allowed  to  go  in  and 
out  among  the  sane,  will  risk  himself  upon  the  sceptical 
side,  in  these  instances.  The  same  may  be  afiirmed 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  Upon  this  four,  with 
the  Epistle  to  the  Philippians  (also  allowed  to  be  unas- 

15*  (173) 


174  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

sailable  by  criticism,  or  by  hypercriticism)  the  entire 
weight  of  the  Christian  argument  might  very  safely  be 
thrown. 


But  I  now  take  in  hand  that  one  of  the  Seven  upon 
which  a  divided  verdict  has  been  pronounced  by  honest 
and  competent  critics.  I  mean  the  Second  Epistle  of 
St.  Peter. 

For  the  purposes  of  the  present  argument,  I  regard 
it  as  if,  on  good  grounds,  supposed  to  be  not  what  it 
professes  itself;  or  to  be,  in  some  sense  not  easily 
defined,  a  spurious  work.  That  it  had  become  known, 
and  that  it  was  publicly  read  throughout  the  East  at  an 
early  period,  is  a  fact  sufficiently  attested  by  the  mode 
in  which  it  is  cited,  or  referred  to,  by  (Clement  of 
Alexandria  ?)  by  Eusebius,  and  by  Jerome.  That,  not- 
withstanding its  intrinsic  excellence,  it  stood  so  long 
waiting  for  admission  into  the  Canon,  is  one  proof, 
among  many,  of  the  cautious  manner  in  Avhicli  the 
ancient  Church  exercised  its  discriminative  functions,  as 
guardian  of  the  Sacred  Text. 

The  intrinsic  excellence  of  this  suspected  epistle  is 
such  that  its  exclusion  from  the  Canon,  if  this  could 
now  be  effected,  would  inflict  pain  upon  every  devout 
reader  of  Holy  Scripture :  its  characteristics  are  apos- 
tolic gravity,  unction,  and  purity  of  aim.  In  a  word, 
it  bears  upon  its  surface  that  inimitable  air  of  calm 
majesty,  and  simplicity,  which  is  peculiarly  Bihlicaly 
and  which  so  broadly  distinguishes  the  books  of  the 
Canon  from  all  other  compositions — especially  from 
those  of  the  ago  next  ensuing. 


THE    RESTOr.ATION    OF    BELIEF.  175 

The  supposition  of  the  sptiriousness  of  this  Epistle 
may  best  be  made  to  consist  with  its  apostolic  tone,  bj 
means  of  some  such  hypothesis  as  this — That  some 
genuine  fragments  of  apostolic  teaching  had  been  put 
together  by  -whoever  framed  the  epistle,  as  one ;  and 
that  the  interference  of  this  fabricator  went  no  further 
than  merely  to  insert,  between  the  fragmentary  por- 
tions, some  few  connective  phrases.  The  first  verse 
therefore  (on  this  supposition)  may  be  untrue  only  so 
far  as  this — that  it  was  not  "  Simon  Peter"  who  issued 
the  whole,  in  its  present  form. 

Any  such  supposition  as  this  manifestly  touches  the 
authority  of  the  epistle,  in  a  theological  sense  ;  but  in 
relation  to  an  argument  purely  historical,  it  has  little  or 
no  significance.  I  will  now  take  it  up  on  the  lowest 
supposition  (which  however  is  very  far  from  coinciding 
with  my  personal  belief)  namely — That,  from  the  first 
verse  to  the  last,  this  epistle  is  a  forgery,  or  an 
attempted  imitation  of  the  well-known  apostolic  style. 

If  so,  then  the  imitation  is  so  good,  that,  notwith- 
standing many  critical  difficulties,  and  the  paucity,  or 
inconclusiveness  of  the  external  evidence,  it  did  obtain 
currency  at  a  very  early  time :  it  did  at  a  later  time, 
make  its  way  into  the  Canon.  In  modern  times  its  air 
of  truth  and  reality  have  secured  for  it  the  suff'rages  of 
an  evenly  balanced  array  of  critics. 

This  fabrication  then  (if  such  it  be)  has  been  ably 
executed.  Those  who  have  decided  against  it,  whether 
in  ancient  times  or  in  our  own,  have  admitted  that  "it 
contains  nothing  unworthy  of  an  Apostle  :" — although 
differing  in  style  from  the  first  epistle,  it  differs  not  at 
all  in  its  tone  and  tendency. 


176  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

Now  let  US  put  the  facts  together.  IIow  good  soever 
the  intentions  of  a  writer  may  be,  or  mistaken  his  prin- 
ciples of  action,  it  is  not  possible  to  attribute  any  high 
degree  of  moral  sensitiveness  to  a  man  Avho  sits  down 
coolly  to  produce  a  forgery.  There  must  be  a  flaw,  or 
something  worse,  in  the  understanding  of  the  maker  of 
a  lie,  as  well  as  a  falseness  in  his  conscience,  be  his  aim 
never  so  good.  A  mind  that  is  at  once  infirm  and 
vitiated,  betrays  itself  somewhere.  An  involuntary 
betrayal  of  itself  may  be  set  down  as  the  natural  con- 
sequences of  an  inward  treason  :  or  it  will  be  so,  unless 
a  restraining  force  of  extraordinary  intensity  is  present 
to  prevent  it. 

In  this  instance  what  was  this  restraining  force,  the 
operation  of  which  has  been  sufficient — as  we  see,  to 
exclude  from  this  fabrication  every  taint  of  the  morbid 
condition  of  the  writer's  own  mind  ?  It  can  have  been 
nothing  else  but  a  very  vivid  sense  of  the  extreme  deli- 
cacy and  diflSculty  of  his  enterprise,  in  its  bearing  upon 
morals.  One  phrase  wrong,  in  this  sense—  a  single 
clause  savouring  of  laxity,  would  be  enough  to  condemn 
the  whole,  in  the  view  of  the  Christian  community ;  for 
all  would  exclaim — "  it  was  not  thus  that  an  Apostle  of 
Jesus  Christ  ever  spoke  or  wrote." 

I  will  put  this  supposition  in  a  more  definite  form,  as 
thus  : — let  us  imagine  that  the  real,  though  unconfessed 
object  of  the  writer  was,  under  favour  of  an  apostolic 
name,  to  give  currency  to  the  belief  of  the  literal  melt- 
ing down  of  the  material  universe — "the  heavens  and 
the  earth,"  in  the  "day  of  the  Lord."  This  startling 
averment,  which  is  but  slenderly,  if  at  all — corroborated 
by  other  Scriptural  declarations,  the  writer  reiterates,  in 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF  1 1  < 

phrases  a  little  varied,  three  times  within  the  compass 
of  the  same  paragraph.  He  does  this  as  if  he  were 
very  intent  upon  his  object,  and  wishing  to  secure  a  due 
reo-ard  to  it.  Here  then  was  precisely  the  hinging 
place  of  the  whole  piece  ;  and  at  this  point  especial  care 
was  requisite. 

Now  the  writer,  well  aware  as  he  was,  of  the  feeling 
that  pervaded  the  Christian  community,  and  knowing 
what  it  was  that  would  be  looked  for  in  a  writing  pur- 
porting to  be  apostolic — skilfully  sets  his  dogma,  as  to 
the  fiery  doom  of  the  creation,  in  the  most  authentic 
style,  inserting  between  his  two  affirmations  of  it,  this 
pointed  ethical  caution— "If  then  all  these  things  (which 
now  we  look  upon)  are  to  be  melted  down  (suddenly, 
and  perhaps  soon)  what  sort  of  persons  ought  you  to 
show  yourselves  in  pureness  of  behaviour  and  in  piety?" 

"  But  we  Christians  look  for  new  heavens,  and  a 

new  earth — which  is  to  be  the  habitation  of  righteous- 
ness. Wherefore  beloved,  inasmuch  as  ye  are  looking 
out  for  such  things  as  these,  be  careful  that  (the  Lord) 
when  he  comes,  may  find  you  in  peace,  unspotted,  and 
blameless." 

It  was  thus  then,  and  in  no  other  manner,  that,  in 
those  early  times,  a  spurious  writing  could  be  put  toge- 
ther with  any  chance  of  its  passing  among  the  Churches 
as  an  apostolic  work.  If  now  this  Epistle  be  genuine, 
then  it  is  available,  Avith  its  majestic  simplicity,  and  its 
fervour,  in  proof  of  the  temper  and  feeling  of  "  Simon 
Peter,  the  servant  and  apostle  of  Jesus  Christ."  But 
if  it  be  spurious,  then  it  is  available,  in  a  sense  even 
more  expressive,  and  more  extensive,  as  indicative  of 
the  temper,  the  feeling,  and  the  moral  sensitiveness  of 


178  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

the  community,  the  suffrages  and  favour  of  which  it 
courted. 

If  I  thought  of,  and  cared  for,  nothing  but  the  argu- 
mentative availableness  of  this  document,  I  should  be 
equally  willing  to  accept  it,  as  genuine,  or  as  spurious. 

Whether  genuine  or  spurious,  it  sustains  alike  a  fur- 
ther inference.  If  it  be  genuine,  then,  in  the  near 
prospect  of  martyrdom,  by  crucifixion — Kai  mrpoj  5f  eni 
'Pto;tt5j5  xata  xs^axr^i  atavpovtai — wliich  ho  mentions  Under 
the  calm  euphemy  of  a  "putting  off  this  tabernacle," 
the  writer  very  pointedly  affirms  his  latest  confident 
profession  of  the  Gospel,  as  true ;  and  he  pledges  him- 
self on  the  ground  of  his  personal  knowledge  of  its 
truth,  in  recollection  of  that  hour,  when,  from  the  midst 
of  the  dazzling  shekinah,  the  voice  of  the  Most  High 
proclaimed  Jesus  the  Son  of  God ! 

But  if  this  epistle  be  factitious,  and  if  the  writer  was, 
as  we  see,  perfectly  aware  of  the  conditions  under 
which  he  might  hope  to  gain  credit  for  his  work,  then 
it  is  manifest  that  it  had  been  the  Jcnotvn  usage  of  the 
Apostles  to  utter  such  professions  of  their  personal  con- 
cernment with  the  supernatural  events  of  Christ's  life. 
Or  state  the  case  thus ; — the  supposition  being  that  this 
second^epistle  is  a  fabrication. — 

— The  very  significant  fact  has  already  obtruded  itself 
upon  our  notice,  that,  taking  the  apostolic  epistles  en 
masse,  allusions  to  the  supernatural  are  very  few ;  not 
being  one  per  cent,  as  to  quantity ;  and  that  these 
writers,  more  often  than  not,  addressed  the 'churches 
without  making  a  single  averment  of  this  sort,  direct 
or  indirect.  It  is  plain  therefore  that  it  would  have 
been  quite  a  safe  course  for  the  forger  of  an  apostolic 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  17U 

letter  to  avoid  cvei"j  thing  of  this  kind :  on  the  "whole, 
it  would  have  been  the  safer  course  of  the  two ;  and 
an  astute  scribe  (he  was  no  blunderer  who  got  up 
this  epistle)  Avould  be  very  likely  to  keep  himself  on 
this  safer  side.  But  now,  unless  it  had  been  the 
known  practice  of  the  Apostles,  and  of  St.  Peter  espe- 
cially, at  times,  if  not  often,  to  affirm  their  personal 
implication  with  the  supernatural  unless  there  had 
been  among  the  churches  a  consciousness  of ,  this  fact, 
it  would  have  been  to  incur  a  risk  of  the  most  ex- 
treme sort  to  insert,  in  a  letter  bearing  the  name  of 
St.  Peter,  a  formal  statement,  such  as  occurs  in  the 
first  chapter. 

If  the  Epistle  be  genuine,  then  this  aged  Teacher  of 
the  Gospel,  in  the  last  days  of  his  life,  affirms 
Christianity  to  be  a  supernatural  dispensation. 

If  it  be  spurious,  it  indicates  the  fact  that  such  affir- 
mations were  customary  with  apostolic  men. 


The  First  Epistle  general  of  Peter.  In  this  in- 
stance to  advance,  as  if  there  might  be  reasonable 
ground  for  it,  the  supposition  of  spuriousness,  would  be 
a  great  impertinence.  The  apostolic  antiquity  of  this 
Epistle  is  a  fact  out  of  question — I  mean  among  those 
whose  readings  in  German  have  not  denuded  them  of 
their  English  common-sense.  Yet  even  here,  though 
very  unwilling  to  seem  to  concede  any  thing  to  pedantry 
and  affectation — I  should  be  willing,  as  to  its  bearing 
upon  my  argument,  to  take  this  Epistle  as  (though  not 


180  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

genuine)   so  like  to  the  genuine,  as  to  secure  for  itself 
universal  acceptance  as  such. 

The  calm  majesty,  the  fervour,  the  bright  hopeful- 
ness, and  the  intense  moral  import  of  the  Epistle  carry 
it  home  to  every  ingenuous  mind  as  an  embodiment  of 
whatever  is  most  aifecting  in  theology,  and  the  most 
eifective  and  salutary  in  ethics.  With  those — if  there 
are  any,  who  have  no  consciousness  of  these  qualities 
in  the  writing  before  us,  I  should  not  court  contro- 
versy. In  any  such  instance  nature  must  have  dealt 
in  a  very  parsimonious  manner  Avith  the  mind  and 
heart,  and  sophistry  must  have  greatly  overdone  her 
part. 

But  how  does  this  Epistle  connect  itself  with  the 
Supernatural  ?  What  does  it  say  of  Miracles  ?  Not 
one  word  of  allusion  does  it  contain  to  occurrences  of 
this  order,  as  then  attendant  upon  the  ministry  of  the 
Apostles.  It  is  addressed  to  the  dispersion  (Christians, 
figuratively,  or  Jewish  converts,  literally)  sojourning  in 
the  provinces  of  the  Lesser  Asia.  St.  Paul  in  his 
course  through  these  same  countries  had  established 
the  reality  of  his  mission  by  "mighty  signs  and  won- 
ders," wrought  in  every  city  on  his  track.  In  these 
provinces — or  some  of  them,  Christianity  had  prevailed 
over  heathenism  to  an  extent — so  says  Pliny — which 
must  leave  a  very  difficult  problem  in  the  hands  of 
those  who,  in  their  theory  of  the  spread  of  the  Gospel, 
deprive  its  preachers  of  the  aid  of  the  Supernatural : 
it  had  spread  and  triumphed  either  without  the  help 
of  miracles  ;  or  with  that  help.  Take  Avhich  suppo- 
sition seems  to  you  to  involve  the  lesser  difficulty. 
I  must  profess  to  think  that  in  this  case  it  is  nothing 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  181 

but    Miracles    that    can    save   us    from    the   Incre- 
dible. 

No  such  occurrences  are  however  alluded  to  in  the 
instance  before  us.  I  draw  an  inference  full  of  mean- 
ing from  this  fact ;  coupled  as  it  is  with  another,  which 
is  of  still  deeper  meaning. 

The  writer,  in  addressing  an  admonition  to  the  Pres- 
byters of  the  Christian  societies  takes  to  himself  the 
style  which  conveys  the  lowest  of  his  claims  so  to 
address  them  :  he  is  a  presbyter,  as  they  are  ;  and  also 
"  a  witness  of  the  sufferings  of  Clmst."  To  these 
Bufferings  he  makes  a  very  distinct  allusion  as  often 
as  seven  times  in  the  course  of  the  Epistle.  In  each 
instance  these  allusions  are  woven  into  an  ethical  con- 
text, in  such  a  manner  as  to  be  inseparable  from  it. 
Take  the  instance  which  occurs  in  the  second  chapter. 
The  main  purport  of  this  chapter,  as  indeed  of  the 
entire  Ej^istle,  is  hortatory,  and  bears  upon  the  con- 
duct and  temper  of  Christians,  when  suffering  for  their 
profession.  Whatever  in  it  is  theological  rather  than 
ethical,  comes  in  as  an  illustration,  or  as  a  subsidiary 
reason :  these  adjuncts,  therefore,  so  cohere  to  the 
mass  as  to  make  an  attempted  separation  of  them 
impracticable. 

Christians  are  fortified  under  the  endurance  of 
"Wrongful  inflictions,  by  several  considerations — mainly 
by  a  reference  to  the  example  of  Christ,  who  so  suf- 
fered, wrongfully  indeed,  for  in  him  was  there  no  sin, 
no  guile,  and  who,  in  silent  patience,  yielded  himself  to 
violence,  while  "  his  own  self  he  bare  our  sins  in  his 
own  body  on  the  tree." 

It  is  thus  that  the  Writer,  and  in  other  places  in  the 

16 


182  THE    RESTORATION     OF    BELIEF. 

same  incidental  manner,  affirms  and  attests  the  death 
of  Christ,  of  which  he  was  a  witness.  This  is  not  all ; 
for,  as  if  to  preclude  subterfuge,  he  follows  the  released 
Spirit  in  its  descent  into  Hades,  and  affirms  what  had 
been  the  purport  of  this  entrance  of  the  "  Shepherd 
and  Bishop  of  Souls"  among  the  Dead.  A  little 
further  on,  and  when  resuming  the  subject  of  the 
patient  endurance  of  wrongful  inflictions,  he  affirms 
that  Christ,  when  "put  to  death  in  the  flesh,"  entered 
— incorporeal — among  the  disembodied  ;  visiting  the 
region  where  they  are  detained  ;  and  there  making  a 
loud  and  authoritative  proclamation  ;  (on  the  part  of 
God.) 

With  the  theology  of  this  passage  I  have  nothing 
to  do ;  nor  am  I  careful  to  forefend  inferences  of  any 
sort.  I  read  the  verses,  in  their  open  and  historic 
sense.  A  knowledge  of  this  fact,  remote  as  it  was 
from  all  cognizance  of  man,  without  supernatural  aid, 
must  have  been  given  to  St.  Peter,  either  by  Christ 
himself,  orally,  after  his  resurrection,  or  must  have 
been  conveyed  to  him  at  a  later  time,  in  some  mode 
which  lie  regarded  as  supernatural ;  and  therefore 
authentic.  If  I  were  to  describe  to  you  the  things 
which  would  be  found  in  a  particular  latitude  and 
longitude,  at  the  lowest  depth  of  the  Atlantic,  in  doing 
so  I  must  make  profession  of  having  at  my  command 
some  means  of  information  that  are  unknown  alike  to 
common  experience  and  to  science.  St.  Peter  affirms, 
therefore,  in  this  case,  that  which  involves  and  implies 
the  supernatural,  even  more  necessarily  than  is  done  in 
some  narratives  of  visible  miracles. 

Put   he  affirms   also   the  resurrection  of  Christ,  in 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  183 

varied  phrases,  five  times  in  this  Epistle.  These  affirm  a 
tions  are  all  of  them  adjunctive  to  his  proper  subject, 
and  inseparable  from  the  context.  They  include  not 
only  the  fact  of  the  resurrection,  but  that  also  of 
Christ's  assumption  to  the  throne  of  celestial  dominion, 
(iii.  22.)  We  have  here  in  hand  an  instance  of  the 
Cohesion  of  the  supernatural  and  the  historic  which  is 
of  a  peculiar  kind. 

In  any  composition  if  three,  four,  or  five  subjects, 
of  different  classes,  are  brought  together,  that  one 
among  them  must  be  regarded  as  the  one  uppermost 
in  the  mind  of  the  writer,  in  illustration  of  which  the 
other  subjects — two,  three,  or  four,  are  introduced. 
That  one  is  the  leading  subject ;  the  others  the  adjunc- 
tive and  subdividing. 

According  to  this  plain  rule,  the  drift  of  this  Epistle 
is  ethical.  The  main  intention  of  the  writer,  and  his 
ruling  impulse,  was  so  to  fortify  the  minds  of  the 
Christian  people  under  his  care,  as  to  secure  the  purity, 
rectitude,  and  religious  consistency  of  their  conduct. 
In  going  about  to  make  good  this — his  main  purpose, 
he  brings  in  those  principal  facts  on  which  the  Christian 
profession  rested,  and  in  behoof  of  which  Christians 
were  liable  to  suffer.  These  facts  stand  in  series, 
commencing  with  a  merely  historic  fact — namely,  the 
crucifixion,  and  the  death  of  Christ — going  on  to  those 
that  were  wholly  remote  from  human  cognizance,  and 
coming  to  a  close  in  the  visible,  yet  supernatural  fact, 
of  Christ's  ascent  from  earth  to  heaven. 

Now  this  instance  of  indissoluble  Cohesion  may  be 
dealt  with,  and  it  has  often  been  so  dealt  with,  in  a 
style  of  extenuation  or  apology,  as  thus.      "  Can  we 


184  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

imagine,  or  ouglit  we  to  suppose  that  a  writer  who  is 
so  careful  to  enforce  moral  principles,  and  who  so  well 
understands  them,  should  himself,  through  life,  be  the 
propagator  of  what  he  must  always  have  known  to  be 
a  falsehood?"  Reasonably  we  can  imagine  no  such 
thing ;  but  just  now  I  should  state  the  case  in  other 
terms,  as  thus — 

I  bring  this  document  into  Court.  In  doing  so  I 
protest  against  any  pleadings  that  take  for  granted  the 
very  question  which  is  now  to  be  argued,  and  upon 
which  the  plaintiff  and  defendant  have  joined  issue. 
That  question  involves  the  reality  of  a  series  of  facts, 
including  those  that  are  miraculous. 

As  to  the  genuineness  of  this  particular  document, 
it  has  already  passed  under  revision,  in  the  proper 
Court ;  and  it  has  been  duly  countersigned  there,  as 
authentic.  It  stands  open  to  no  exceptions  that  could 
be  available  for  the  plaintiff,  except  this  one — that  it 
bears  upon  the  verdict  in  a  sense  unfavourable  to 
himself.  But  this  exception,  of  course,  stands  for 
nothing. 

I  read  my  document  from  beginning  to  end,  and 
then  ask — "  Excluding  the  plaintiff's  nugatory  objec- 
tion, which  is  grounded  upon  his  apprehension  of  an 
adverse  verdict,  would  this  Epistle  suggest  any  other 
idea  than  this,  that  the  writer's  own  mind  was  tranquil 
and  well-ordered  ;  and  that  his  intention  in  writing 
it  was  of  that  sort  which  is  becoming  to  a  wise  and 
virtuous  man ;  especially  to  one  who  is  in  a  place  of 
authority?" 

The  answer  is  manifest.  This  Epistle,  if  read  apart 
from  any  reference  to  the  point  now  under  debate,  and 


THE   KESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  185 

if  judged  of  purely  on  the  ground  of  its  intrinsic 
merits,  carries  home  to  our  understandings  and  best 
feelings  an  irresistible  impression  of  the  goodness, 
■wisdom,  and  simplicity  of  the  writer.  Search  the 
entire  compass  of  ethical  writings,  ancient  and  modern, 
we  should  not  find  even  one  that  carries  more  decisively 
upon  it  the  characteristics  of  sincerity,  and  truth- 
fulness. 

Why  should  it,  or  why  should  the  writer  be  otherwise 
thought  of  ?  For  no  imaginable  reason,  only  this,  that 
if  Ave  allow  him  his  due — then  the  plaintiff  is  very 
likely  to  be  non-suited. 


The  genuineness  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and 
the  integrity  of  the  Text,  are  admitted  by  the  highest 
critical  authorities.  Its  antiquity  is  vouched  for,  at 
once  b}'-  the  usual  external  evidence,  and  by  several 
allusions  contained  in  it  to  the  services  of  the  Jewish 
Temple ;  and  which  indicate  its  publication  before  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem.  As  to  the  authorship  of  this 
Epistle,    Origen's  judgment  may  well  be   assented  to 

— art,  •fa  ix'iv  vorifiata  -tov  arCoijto'Kov  lativ,  tj  hi  ij)patf£,j  xal  tj 
CvvOtai;  aTiouvYifiovivsaiVtoq  tivo^  t'o.  aTtodtoTiixa and  thlS  al- 
lowed, it  will  take  its  place  chronologically,  in  the  last 
year,  or  two  years,  of  the  Apostle's  life. 

This  composition  is  a  theological  treatise  in  its  sub- 
stance ;  an  epistle  only  in  its  form.  It  is  just  so  far 
personal  in  its  allusions  as  to  give  the  whole  a  more  dis- 
tinctly historic  character  than  it  Avould  derive  from  its 
argumentative  portions :    The  writer  speaks  once  and 

IG* 


186  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

again  of  himself,  and  of  his  colleague  Timothy  ;  a^«^  he 
administers  rebukes,  freely  and  mildly,  to  those  whom 
he  addresses,  as  if  personally  acquainted  with  their  reli- 
gious condition,  and  their  attainments. 

These  attainments  fell  short,  it  seems,  of  what  might 
have  been  exipected,  opportunities  of  improvement  con- 
sidered; nevertheless  it  is  manifest  that  the  writer  sup- 
posed himself  to  be  addressing  persons  who,  as  well  in 
their  biblical  accomplishments,  as  in  the  keenness  of 
their  intellectual  habits,  vastly  surpassed  that  average  of 
mental  power  and  learning  which  is  to  be  found  in  our 
Protestant  congregations.  A  verse-by- verse  commentary, 
aided  by  all  the  stores  of  our  modern  biblical  erudition, 
is  not  more  than  is  needed  to  give  even  a  well  instructed 
and  intelligent  congregation  a  thorough  comprehension 
of  the  reasoning  of  some  parts  of  this  Treatise.  Those 
passages  in  it  which,  in  their  tone,  rise  above  the  tem- 
perature proper  to  biblical  expository  reasoning,  are 
those  in  which  the  calmness  of  heaven's  own  atmosphere 
gives  majesty  to  the  language  of  the  writer :  of  this 
sort  are  the  opening  verses  of  the  treatise,  and  the 
middle  portion  of  the  twelfth  chapter. 

This  treatise — with  its  incidental  allusions,  its  refer- 
ences to  the  then-existing  Jewish  economy,  its  tranquil 
and  refined  trains  of  argument,  its  pointed  admonitions, 
its  tone  of  serious  intensity,  is,  in  itself,  an  IIistorio 
Mass  :  it  is  a  Reality  of  the  Apostolic  times  ; — and 
as  such  it  is  competent  to  sustain  whatever  is  found  to 
be  inseparably  attached  to  it. 

The  persons  addressed  were  thoroughly  conversant 
with  Jewish  institutions,  as  also  with  the  conventional 
sense  of  those  forms  of  speech  which  had  their  source 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  187 

in  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures,  and  which  had  long 
been  familiar  to  the  Jewish  ear,  through  the  medium  of 
the  Greek  version. 

The  writer,  in  his  exordium,  affirms  the  surpassing 
dignity  of  HiM  to  whom  the  new  dispensation  owes  its 
origin :  and  having  done  so,  he  draws  the  natural  infer- 
ence, that  a  negligent  regard  to  it  will  involve  so  much 
the  more  guilt  and  danger.  This  Gospel  message  which 
was  first  announced,  he  says,  by  the  Lord,  had  been  con- 
firmed toward  the  Christians  of  that  time  by  those  who 
had  heard  Christ  himself — "  God  bearing  witness  (to  the 
truth  of  their  testimony)  with  signs  and  wonders  ;  and 
divers  powers,  and  bestowments  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  ac- 
cording to  His  pleasure." 

To  Jewish  ears  these  phrases  carried  a  conventional 
meaning  that  stood  clear  of  all  ambiguity:  it  is  an 
authentic  formula  of  the  Old  Testament,  bringing  recol- 
lections with  it  that  embraced  the  staple  of  the  national 
belief.  Think  what  we  may  of  the  articles  of  that 
belief,  these  phrases  recalled  to  the  mind  of  the  Jew 
of  the  apostolic  age,  that  long  series  of  miracles  which 
had  placed  the  people  in  a  position  of  the  nearest  rela- 
tionship with  God.  The  words  and  the  combinations 
of  them  are  identical  throughout  the  Old  Testament, 

and    the    New Kai)    'iSuxi    Kijptoj   arjfisla   xal   T'spttt'x   iA.syd%a 

ta  arifjula  xa,l  ■j'a  T'Epafa  fisydxa  txicva :  they  OCCUr 

frequently  in  the  Pentateuch,  in  the  Psalms,  and  in  the 
Prophets.  They  had  come  also  into  current  use  in  the 
Christian  community,  in  connexion  with  events  admitted 
to  be  supernatural,  as  appears  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apos- 
tles, throughout. 

Thus  it  is  then  that,  in  the  course  of  a  lengthened 


188  THE   RESTOKATION   OF   BELIEF. 

argumentation  which  discusses  or  alludes  to  a  round  of 
religious  topics,  bringing  the  ancient  and  the  new 
economy  into  comparison  in  various  points  of  view, 
there  occurs  one,  and  only  one,  affirmation  concerning 
miracles ;  but  then  this  one  is  perfectly  explicit ;  and 
it  is  so  worded  that  the  persons  addressed  could  not 
misunderstand  the  writer.  He  affirms  that  those  who 
had  been  the  hearers  of  Christ,  and  who  had  reported 
the  Gospel  message  to  the  Christian  converts  of  the 
then  present  time,  had,  in  delivering  this  message, 
received  the  same  sort  of  attestation  from  God  himself, 
which  had  been  granted  to  Moses  and  the  Prophets. 

And  as  nothing  vague  could  attach  to  the  wording  of 
this  passage,  and  as  it  stands  boldly  prominent  in  a  con- 
text of  peculiar  gravity,  so  did  it  receive  a  more  than 
ordinary  weight  of  meaning  from  the  circumstances  of 
the  persons  addressed.  It  was  to  the  Jewish  con- 
verts still  resident  in  Palestine,  that  the  treatise  was 
primarily  addressed,  and  through  them,  no  doubt, 
to  the  same  class  of  persons  throughout  the  world. 
These  Palestinian  Jewish  Christians,  among  whom  there 
were  surviving  some  who  themselves  had  listened  to 
Christ's  discourses,  and  had  witnessed  his  miracles, 
were  in  a  position  materially  unlike  that  of  the  Gentile 
converts  in  distant  countries.  Not  only  were  they  resi- 
dent on  the  spot  where  the  Evangelic  history  took  its 
rise  ;  but  they  consorted  every  where  with  those  of  their 
countrymen  who  virulently  denied  the  Messiahship  of 
Jesus.  The  alleged  miracles  of  that  history  were  rife 
matters  of  debate — in  Jewish  families — in  synagogues 
— in  the  market-places — on  the  high  ways — in  the  areas 
of  the  Temple. 


THE    RESTOKATION    OF    BELIEF.  189 

How  then  do  we  purpose  to  deal  with  the  fourth 
verse  of  the  second  chapter  of  this  Epistle  ?  There  is 
no  pretext  for  cutting  it  out  of  its  place :  it  stands 
where  it  stands,  unimpeachable  on  critical  grounds.  It 
attests  this  fact,  first,  that  apostolic  men — this  writer 
at  least — did  not  hesitate  boldly  to  affirm  the  occurrence 
of  miracles  among  those  to  whom  the  idea  of  such 
attestations  of  a  message  from  God  was  intelligible  and 
familiar.  It  establishes  also  this  fact,  that  Jewish  con- 
verts of  that  time  customarily  admitted  the  reality  of 
such  occurrences.  If  they  had  not  done  so  there  could 
not  have  been  room  for  an  unexplained  and  categorical 
affirmation  of  them,  such  as  this. 

If  the  alleged  miracles  of  that  time  had  been  very 
few,  and  these  few  of  ambiguous  quality,  and  if  they  had 
barely  been  recognized  by  Palestinian  converts,  there 
would  either  have  been  no  allusion  to  them  (as  there  are 
none  in  fourteen  of  the  apostolic  epistles)  or  something 
would  have  been  said^  of  them  in  the  style,  either  of 
apology,  or  of  asseveration.  This  simply  worded  pas- 
sage of  three  lines  would  have  been  introduced  or  fol- 
lowed by  a  verse  or  two  of  oblique  insinuation,  or  of 
evasion,  saving  a  way  of  escape  for  the  writer. 

The  question  I  put,  in  this  instance,  is  this. — Sup- 
posing the  alleged  miracles  of  the  apostolic  period  to  be 
real,  then  is  not  this  brief,  bold,  and  unambiguous  refer- 
ence to  them  just  what  is  natural  in  the  case  of  a  writer 
who  himself  is  conscious  of  truth,  who  knows  that  the 
phrases  he  employs  carry  a  determinate  biblical  mean- 
ing, and  who  forecasts  no  contrcfdiction  ? 

This  passage  in  this  Epistle  may  be  thrown  out  of  its 
place,  as  to  its  historic  import,  by  supposing  that  the 


190  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

writer  was  a  man  of  that  class  who,  devoid  alike  of  sham" 
and  of  sensibility,  alloAv  themselves  to  use  boastful  ex 
pressions,  at  random,  which  are  well  understood  to  hav* 
no  meaning — vauntings,  which  are  the  mere  expletives 
of  a  rambling  rhapsody,  forgotten  as  soon  as  uttered, 
and  disregarded  when  heard. 

Tell  me  plainly,  do  you  profess  this  to  be  your  judg 
ment  in  this  case  ? 


The  Epistle  to  the  Romans  is  also  a  Treatise  rather 
than  an  Epistle  ;  its  authenticity  and  genuineness  are 
out  of  question ;  or  if  you  would  fortify  your  English 
distaste  of  the  frivolities  of  German  criticism,  acquaint 
yourself  with  that  tissue  of  surmises  on  the  ground  of 
which  the  genuineness  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
chapters  has  been  questioned.  The  continuity  of 
thought,  running  on  from  the  fourteenth  into  the  fif- 
teenth chapter,  and  thence  to  the  end  of  the  Epistle, 
is  irresistibly  conspicuous.  The  thought  and  the  lan- 
guage are  all  of  a  piece,  from  the  first  verse  to  the  last 
of  this  Treatise.  Why  then  determine  otherwise  ?  Be- 
cause the  gratification  of  a  pedantic  ambition,  and  the 
craving  for  paradox  may  find  a  momentary  opportunity 
in  an  instance  of  this  sort. 

With  the  theology  of  this  Epistle  I  have  nothing  to 
do  at  this  time ;  nor  with  the  ethical  portions  of  it, 
unless  to  say,  in  passing,  that,  following  as  they  do  as 
inferences  from  the  theology,  they  present  to  us  an 
instance  most  remarkable,  of  an  equipoise  of  principles, 
not  logically  wrouglit    out,  but  springing  from  a  har- 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  191 

monj  that  is  loftier  and  deeper  than  the  range  of  mun- 
dane speculation. 

But  now  find  me  any  where  a  sample  of  practical 
good  sense  more  striking  than  is  that  presented  in  the 
fourteenth  chapter,  and  running  on  into  the  next. 
These  six  and  twenty  verses,  if  they  had  been  duly 
regarded  on  every  occasion  to  which  they  might  right- 
fully have  been,  applied,  in  the  course  of  eighteen  centu 
lies,  would  have  exempted  the  loaded  shelf  opposite  me, 
just  now,  from  the  weight  of  at  least  ten  of  the  folios 
of  the  Acta  Conciliorum.  But  great  principles,  when 
simply  announced,  demand  cycles  of  time  for  getting 
themselves  recognized — cycles  as  long  almost  as  geolo- 
gical eras. 

This  Epistle,  like  the  one  last  named,  contains  one, 
and  only  one  affirmation  as  to  the  miracles,  as  events 
then  occurring.  But  this  one  averment  is,  like  that  last 
referred  to,  explicit,  and  bold,  and  it  is  unaccompanied 
by  any  expletive  or  extenuating  phrases.  It  goes  fur- 
ther, however,  in  relation  to  my  present  argument,  than 
the  passage  cited  from  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  In 
that,  the  writer  does  not  affirm  for  himself  the  exercise 
of  miraculous  gifts  :  in  this  he  does  so  very  distinctly. 
In  this  Epistle,  "  Paul  the  Apostle  of  Jesus  Christ " 
stands  before  us  in  a  clear  historic  light,  connecting  him- 
self with  the  supernatural.  Up  to  the  time  of  writing 
it,  he  had  not  made  proof  of  his  ministry  among  the 
Christians  of  Rome.  He  had  long  been  wishing  to  do 
so,  and  he  now  believed  that,  at  no  very  remote  time, 
this,  his  Christian  wish,  might  be  accomplished  ;  for 
after  he  had  fulfilled  his  immediate  intention  of  visitinsr 
Jerusalem,  he  hoped  to  make  his  way  into  Spain,  and 


192  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

to  see  Rome  in  passing.  Ilis  course  of  evangelic 
labour,  hitherto,  had  occupied  more  time  than,  perhaps, 
he  had  calculated  upon  ;  for  he  had  taken  a  very  wide 
circuit  in  adhering  to  his  rule,  not  to  build  on  another 
man's  foundation. 

Thus  he  had  gone  preaching  the  Gospel  throughout 
all  the  countries  intervening,  landwise,  between  Jerusa- 
lem and  Italy.  Many,  in  these  regions,  had  listened  to 
him,  and  had  become  " obedient  to  the  faith;"  yet  it 
had  not  been  by  preaching  alone  that  these  successes 
had  been  won  ;  for  it  was  by  "  word  and  deed '-'  that  the 
people  had  been  persuaded  to  forsake  their  idols.  From 
"  Jerusalem,  and  round  about  unto  Illyricum,"  he 
had  (every  where  and)  in  a  complete  manner,  made  pro- 
clamation of  the  Gospel ;  and  in  doing  so  he  had  given 
proof  of  the  reality  of  his  mission  by  "  mighty  signs 
and  wonders,"  which  Christ  had  wrought  by  his  hands. 

This  noted  affirmation  has  often  been  adduced  by 
Christian  advocates ;  yet  there  may  be  room  for  me  to 
bring  the  facts  once  again  under  review ;  -as  thus. — 

The  resort  of  Jews  to  Rome,  and  the  access  which 
they  had  gained  for  themselves  to  persons  of  all  ranks, 
even  the  highest,  had  been  the  means  of  introducing 
many  to  a  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures,  in  a  Greek  ver- 
sion. Among  these  "  devout  persons" — Gentiles  by  birth 
and  habit,  Christianity  rapidly  made  converts  ;  and  un- 
impeachable evidence  attests  the  fact  that,  in  Nero's 
reign,  the  number  of  Christians  at  Rome  was  very  great. 

These  Gentile  converts  were  all  conversant  with  the 
Old  Testament  history,  and  were  accustomed  to  the 
recitation  of  the  Psalms,  and  to  the  hearing  of  the  Pro- 
phets.    This  sort  of  familiarity  Avith  biblical  history,  and 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF.         193 

with  the  phraseology  of  the  Scriptures,  undoubteclly 
belonged  to  those  to  whom  were  addressed  the  now 
extant  non-canonical  epistles  of  the  first  and  second 
centuries. 

Besides ;  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  itself  furnishes 
abundant  evidence  of  the  diffusion  of  this  amount  of 
biblical  knowledge  among  those  to  whom  it  is  addressed, 
Gentiles  as  wejl  as  Jews.  St.  Paul  now  writes  to  these 
converts,  announcing  his  intention  to  visit  them  shortly. 
He  tells  them  that  he  had  lately  been  employed  preach- 
ing the  Gospel  in  many  provinces  of  the  empire.  He 
speaks  too  of  the  miracles  that  had  every  where  given 
elficacy  to  his  preaching ;  and  in  doing  so  he  uses  that  one 
set  of  phrases  to  which  the  ears  of  the  people  had  been 
long  accustomed,  and  which,  in  their  minds,  stood  con- 
nected with  the  notable  miracles  of  the  Old  Testament 
history.  In  using  this  'particidar  form  of  words,  St. 
Paul  perfectly  knew  in  what  sense  they  would  be  under- 
stood when  the  Epistle  was  read  in  the  Christian  con- 
gregations of  Rome. 

These  congregations,  numbering  hundreds  of  persons, 
"if  not  thousands,  were  told  that  they  were  soon  to  see 
and  hear  this  noted  preacher  of  the  Gospel  who,  in  his 
course  from  city  to  city  of  the  Roman  world,  had 
wrought  miracles  of  such  a  kind  that  the  phrase  "  mighty 
signs  and  wonders,"  might  with  propriety  be  applied  to 
them. 

But  at  length  this  Preacher,  he  having  appealed  to 
Caesar's  tribunal,  reaches  Rome  :  he  stays  there  a  length 
of  time :  in  what  manner  then  does  he  meet  and  satisfy 
those  expectations  which  he  had  himself  excited  among 
the  people  ?     This  we  are  not  told.     But  it  appears  that 

17 


194  TUE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

he  found  his  countrymen  there,  or  the  greater  part  of 
them,  ill-affected  toward  the  new  religion,  and  more  dis- 
posed to  listen  to  those  many  reports  to  its  disadvan- 
tage which  had  reached  them,  than  to  his  arguments  in 
its  favour.  An  open  breach  soon  takes  place  between 
the  gainsaying  Jews  of  Rome,  and  this  Preacher  of  the 
Gospel,  who  denounces,  and  in  fact,  defies  them. 

What  would  next  follow  may  be  surmised ;  but  let 
us  assume  that  the  passage  above  cited  in  the  Epistle 
meant  nothing — or  nothing  that  would  bear  inquiry : 
the  words  were  a  mere  floui'ish — a  rhetorical  grace ! 
Neither  did  this  Preacher  show  any  "  signs  or  wonders" 
ut  Rome,  answerable  to  the  kindled  expectations  of  the 
people ;  nor  did  those  who,  from  time  to  time,  arrived 
from  the  provinces  he  had  evangelized,  bring  with  them 
authentic  or  credible  reports  of  any  such  miracles  as 
those  which  the  language  of  the  writer  implied.  What 
effect  so  great  a  disappointment  as  this  must  have  pro- 
duced among  the  Christian  people  of  Rome,  I  will  not 
venture  to  affirm.  Let  it  only  be  remembered  that 
these  newly  professed  Christians  were  of  three  classes, 
namely — first,  Jewish  converts  having  constantly  to  do ' 
in  their  homes,  with  those  of  their  countrymen  who  were 
virulently  opposed  to  the  Gospel,  and  who  were  now  the 
irritated  personal  enemies  of  Paul ; — secondly,  Gentile 
converts,  from  the  populace  of  Rome,  whose  natural 
eagerness  to  witness  "  signs  and  wonders  "  had  been 
whetted  by  Paul  himself;  and — thirdhj,  a  few  persons 
of  rank  and  education,  about  the  Court,  who,  in  com- 
promising themselves  with  the  new  sect,  even  in  the 
most  cautious  manner,  had  risked  every  thing — life,  as 
well  as  fortune. 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF.         195 

In  what  way  these  several  classes  of  believers  Avere 
affected  when,  after  a  three  or  four  years  suspense,  they 
found  that,  in  fact,  no  miracles  were  to  be  looked  for  in 
attestation  of  this  preacher's  mission,  or  in  justification 
of  his  own  professions,  we  do  not  know. 

But  what  we  do  know  is  this— that,  three  or  four 
years  later,  there  were  Christians  enough  in  Eome  to 
slake  the  ferocity  of  Nero — even  the — multitudo  ingens, 
of  Tacitus. 

Now  this  "vast  multitude" — or  let  us  take  the  words 
in  their  lowest  probable  meaning,  whatever  that  may  be 
— had  either  professed  Christianity  at  the  time  when 
the  Epistle  from  Paul  reached  them,  or  else  there  had 
been  a  great  accession  of  converts  during  the  interven- 
ing three  or  four  years. 

If  we  take  the  first-named  of  these  suppositions  then 
one  must  think  it  a  serious  matter  (if  we  know  any  thing 
of  popular  excitability)  to  disappoint  the — multitudo 
ingens  in  regard  to  these  promised  supernatural  attesta- 
tions. Knowing  that  he  must  disappoint  the  multitude 
at  Rome  in  this  very  manner,  then  the  boldness  of  the 
language  in  which,  only  a  few  days  after  his  arrival,  he 
defies  the  Jews,  and  makes  his  appeal  to  the  Gentiles  is 
indeed  amazing.     Acts,  xxviii. 

But  we  now  take  up  the  second  of  these  suppositions, 
and  assume  that,  though  the  Christians  of  Rome  had 
been  few  when  the  Epistle  before  us  reached  them,  the 
— multitudo  ingens  had  been  "  added  to  the  Church" 
after  the  occurrence  of  this  signal  disappointment,  and 
after  the  time  when  the  gainsaying  Jew  had  been  put 
in  a  triumphant  position,  and  was  warranted  in  defying 
this  Preacher  to  make  good  his  written  pretensions  !    Is 


lOG  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

this  then   our    supposition  ?      To  me  a  belief   in  the 
Christian  miracles  is  far  more  easy. 


One  affirmation  only,  concerning  miracles,  we  have 
found  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews ;  one  in  that  to  the 
Romans ;  oiie  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians ;  one  in 
the  second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians.  In  each  of  these 
single  instances  the  allusion  is  cursory ;  it  arises  out  of 
the  occasion,  and  it  is  firmly  agglutinated  with  the  con- 
text. Moreover  to  each  of  these  instances  there  attaches 
some  special  circumstance,  rendering  this  sort  of  cate- 
gorical averment  in  a  high  degree  dangerous,  if,  in 
fact,  it  had  been  liable  to  any  sort  of  exception.  It  was 
so,  peculiarly,  in  the  instance  now  in  hand. 

Throughout  the  scattered  societies  of  Galatia,  and 
among  a  people  remarkable  for  the  fickleness  of  their 
dispositions,  and  for  their  proneness  to  be  led  and 
driven  by  demagogues,  the  apostolic  authority  of  St. 
Paul  had  been  set  at  defiance,  or  was  openly  impugned, 
while  the  doctrine  he  had  taught  was  denounced.  Up 
and  down  throughout  this  province,  and  scattered 
among  its  obscure  towns,  where  they  could  not  be 
followed,  there  were,  as  the  writer  of  this  Epistle 
knew,  those  who  stood  forward  as  his  personal  ene- 
mies, and  who  were  ready  to  catch  an  advantage 
against  him. 

Nevertheless,  in  the  bosom  of  these  distracted  socie- 
ties there  were  some  to  whose  better  feelings  he  might 
still  appeal — some  there  were  who  adhered  to  the  evan- 


THE  RESTORATION  OP  BELIEF.         197 

gelic  doctrine — some  who  professed  and  contended  for 
the  "faith  once  delivered"  to   them.     We  must  infer 

also  from  the  expression  6  olv  a7tix6pt]y:jv  i^dv that 

there  was  one  Teacher  among  the  Galatian  converts 
who  continued  to  maintain  that  foremost  article  of  the 
Christian  ,  system  which  was  its  characteristic,  as  con- 
trasted with  the  Pharisaic  Judaism  of  the  times,  and 
which,  in  this  epistle,  St.  Paul  expounds  anew.  The 
position  of  this  one  Teacher,  in  the  midst  of  the  gene- 
ral defection,  must  have  been  that  of  antagonism  ; 
and  it  was  with  him,  as^  we  may  infer  from  the 
phrases  used,  that  remained  the  power  of  working' 
miracles. 

The  appeal  made  to  the  supernatural  endowments 
of  this   one  Teacher  (if  our  inference  from  the  form 
of  expression  he  historically  right)  was  in  the  highest 
degree  fearless.     But  whether  or  not  an  Individual  so 
distinguished,  be  here  intended,  or  whether  the  apostle, 
though  using  the  present  tense,   means  to  remind  the 
people  of  his  own  ministrations  among  them,  in  times 
past,   this  brief  challenge  is   in   the  style  of  one  who 
feels  that  he  risks  no  contradiction,  as  to  the  matter 
of  fact;  he  says,  Are  ye  then  indeed  so  unwise?  after 
accepting   Christianity   as   a   spiritual  system,   are  ye 
now  going  back   to  a  system  of  bodily  observances  ? 
Has  it  then  been  to  no  purpose  (as  the  professors  of  a 
spiritual  doctrine)  that  ye  have  suifered  so  much  (at 
the  hands  of  Jewish  fanatics)   if  indeed  it  has  been  to 
no  purpose!     Or    answer  me    now  this  question— He 
(the  Teacher)  who  now  ministers  to  you  the  gifts  of  the 
Spirit,  and  who  works  miracles  among  you— xa.  b  tVjpywi/ 
hwdfitii — is  he  a  teacher  of  the  legalizing  doctrine  ?  or 

17* 


198  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

does  he  not  maintain  the  doctrine  of  salvation  by  faith, 
•which  I  am  now  explaining  to  you  anew  ? 

This  question  followed  hard  upon  a  taunt,  the  pun- 
gency of  which  finds  no  parallel  in  the  other  epistles  of 
this  writer,  affectionate  and  courteous  too,  as  he  is. 
He  calls  these  Galatians  awj^fot ;  and  he  asks  who  it  is 
that  has  so  far  abused  their  folly  as  actually  to  bereave 
them  of  their  senses  ? 

No  inference  which  I  judge  to  be  important  is 
dependant  upon  what  may  be  a  questionable  paraphrase 
of  this  passage.  The  fact  is  enough  that  St.  Paul,  to 
whom  the  recollection  of  his  miraculous  powers  does 
not  ever  occur  when  he  is  addressing  his  attached 
friends,  boldly  affirms  them,  or  affirms  the  same  gifts 
in  his  colleagues,  when  he  descends  among  his  adver- 
saries. This  he  does  when,  as  in  the  present  instance, 
he  intends  to  keep  no  terms  of  amity  with  his  oppo- 
nents ;  and  he  does  the  same  whether  the  tempers  he 
had  to  do  with  were  more  or  less  virulent. 

Note  this  fact,  that  those  of  the  epistles  of  St.  Paul 
which  contain  affirmations  of  the  supernatural,  are 
those  in  which  he  encounters  his  adversaries,  and  admi- 
nisters sharp  rebukes,  even  to  his  attached  adherents. 
It  is  also  to  be  observed  that,  when  we  name  those 
of  his  fourteen  epistles  which  are  the  most  distinctly 
marked  with  the  historic  characteristics  of  genuine- 
ness, we  are  naming  also  those  in  which  he  affirms 
the  present  occurrence  of  miracles.  It  is  thus  that 
the  purely  historic  and  the  supernatural  are,  as  one 
may  say,  inseparably  rivetted  together  in  these 
writings. 


THE    RESTORATION   OF    BELIEF.  199 

It  is  SO  in  the  two  Epistles  to  the  Christian  people 
of  Corinth.  If  there  be  any  thing  at  all  that  has 
come  down  to  us  from  antiquity,  whole  and  unques- 
tionable, these  two  epistles  will  take  a  place  among  such 
ofioxoyovixiva,  J  and  if  in  any  instance  an  ancient  writer 
has  spread  himself  out,  and  opened  the  door  of  his 
heart  to  our  inspection,  St.  Paul  has  done  so  in  these 
two  epistles. 

I  take  up  first,  the  second  epistle,  containing  as  it 
does  one  passuge  that  is  applicable  to  my  immediate 
purpose.  This  is  the  twelfth  verse  of  the  twelfth 
chapter. 

There  might  be  room  to  think  that  the  remarkable 
passage  with  which  this  same  chapter  commences, 
should  also  be  named  as  an  affirmation  of  the  super- 
natural. It  is  so  in  reality ;  but  it  is  not  so  in  a 
logical  sense  ;  or  as  bearing  out  the  inference  upon 
which  I  have  to  insist.  The  sort  of  affirmations  I  am 
in  quest  of  are  those  in  support  of  which  the  writer 
mai/  appeal,  and  does  so,  to  the  knowledge  of  those 
whom  he  addresses.  St.  Paul,  in  this  case,  necessarily, 
affirms  only  what  belonged  to  his  individual  expe- 
rience ;  he  declares  that  thus  he  had  been  favoured 
with  two  extraordinary  revelations ;  but  though  the 
mention  of  them  is  proper  to  the  occasion,  they  are 
not  to  be  adduced  as  logically  available  in  the  present 
instance. 

Compelled  as  he  was  by  the  audacity  of  his  oppo- 
nents at  Corinth  to  assert,  and  to  vindicate,  his  apos- 
tolic authority,  he  reminds  the  people  there  of  the 
circumstances  that  had  attended  his  ministrations 
among  them  ;   and  he  says  that,  feeble  as  he  might  be 


200  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

in  himself,  he  had  in  no  respect  shown  himself  inferior 
to  the  most  noted  of  the  Apostles ;  for  the  wonted 
attestations  of  an  apostolic  commission  had  been 
wrought  (not  simply  affirmed)  among  them,  with  all 
submissiveness  of  manner,  iv  a-yjfisioii  xai  ■ttpaoi,  xai  Swdfisai. 
Here  again  we  have  the  customary  biblical  formula, 
and  in  its  more  expanded  expression. 

We  now  turn  to  the  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians. 
In  that  one  passage  in  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
which  links  it  to  the  supernatural,  the  persons  ad- 
dressed are  reminded  that  tJicT/  had  witnessed  miracles, 
wrought  by  those  from  whose  lips  they  had  received  the 
Gospel  message.  In  the  epistle  to  the  Romans,  the 
writer  affirms  of  himself  that  he  had  wrought  miracles 
in  the  course  of  his  late  missionary  journeys.  In  the 
epistle  to  the  Churches  of  Galatia  he  appeals  to  the 
miracles  that  were  then  frequently  wrought  among 
themselves.  In  the  second  epistle  to  the  Corinthians 
he  speaks  of  the  miracles  wrought  by  himself  during 
his  stay  at  Corinth.  In  this  first  epistle  he  speaks, 
at  large  and  particularly,  and  with  perfect  freedom, 
of  the  existence  and  exercise  of  miraculous  gifts  among 
themselves. 

He  tells  them  generally  (i.  7)  that  they  had  been 

wanting  in  no  gift — iv  fi^jSivi  x^^p^s/j-att. with  which 

other  churches  had  been  favoured.  These  gifts  he 
specifies  (xii.  4)  mingling  those  which  are  ordinary  with 
the  supernatural ;  and  this  is  so  done  as  if  to  weave 
the  two  elements  together  in  a  fabric  the  materials 
of  which  should  not  be  severed.  "  To  one  among  you 
is  granted,  by  the  same  spirit — wisdom — to  another 
knowledge ; — to    one    faith,    to    another    charisms    for 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  201 

healing,  to  another  energies  for  mighty  works — to 
another  prophecy,  to  another  the  discrimination  of 
spirits  (or  knowledge  of  character)  to  another  (the  com- 
mand of)  several  languages ; — to  another  the  inter- 
pretation of  languages." 

Further  on  the  writer  enumerates — apparently  in 
the  order  of  their  relative  importance  in  his  view,  the 
functions  which  were  constituted,  and  which  were  then 
in  exercise  in  the  Church ;  as  thus — first,  that  of  apos- 
tles ;  next  of  prophets  (or  teachers),  then  instructors, 
or  masters  of  classes.  After  these  come  the  functions 
of  those  who  wore  endowed  with  miraculous  powers, 
gifts  of  healing — faculties  of  administration,  and 
management,  and  the  command  of  languages.  The 
order  which  prevails  in  these  enumerations  deserves 
attention. 

Between  this  more  general  declaratory  passage,  and 
those  injunctions  which  a  disorderly  practice  had  called 
for,  there  comes  a  parenthesis — an  entire  chapter — 
luminous  with  good  sense :  ought  we  not  to  acknow- 
ledge this,  and  risk  the  consequence?  If  now  it  be 
Heaven's  wisdom,  of  which  we  have  such  a  sample, 
supernaturalhj  granted  to  this  writer,  we  need  hold  no 
further  argument  concerning  Christianity.  But  if  it  be 
the  writer's  natural  wisdom  which  here  shines  out,  then 
how  shall  we  make  it  consist  with  the  supposition  of 
the  tumid  extravagance  of  his  mind :  or  of  any  imagin- 
able condition  of  conscious  falseness  in  his  professions 
or  conduct  ?  But  we  have  to  mark  here  that  these 
thirteen  verses,  teeming  as  they  do  with  the  very  sub- 
stance of  ethical  truth,  and  exhibiting  so  correct  a 
sense  of  ethical   distinctions,  come  in   as  a  corrective 


202  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

of  that  natural  error  from  which  we  have  found  tho 
apostolic  writers  to  be  themselves  wholly  exempt — I 
mean  the  error  of  thinking  more  of  miracles  than  of 
morality — more  of  "  signs  and  wonders,"  than  of 
temper  and  behaviour.  If  four  or  five  of  these  gifted 
Corinthian  converts  had  left  us  so  many  as  one-and- 
twenty  of  their  letters  and  treatises,  I  think  we  should 
not  have  found  fourteen  of  them  destitute  of  a  single 
affirmation  as  to  their  own  command  of  the  super- 
natural ;  nor  the  remaining  seven,  each  with  nothing 
more  than  a  brief  and  solitary  allusion  of  this  kind. 

But  a  word  more  should  be  said  on  this  occasion. 
This  thirteenth  chapter  of  the  epistle  before  us  is  a 
parenthesis,  linking  the  purely  historic  instructions 
which  precede  it,  with  other  insructions,  having  relation 
to  a  misapplication  of  supernatural  endowments.  Here 
then  we  have  the  simply  historic,  or  natural,  blended 
and  bound  up  with  the  supernatural,  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  defy  the  endeavour  to  separate  the  two.  In  the 
instances  hitherto  adduced  I  have  noticed  the  iron  rivet- 
ting  of  these  two  elements :  in  the  present  instance  I 
ask,  Is  not  this  tie  a  bolt  of  the  purest  gold  ? 

The  rule  I  adhere  to  is  to  lay  no  stress  upon  any 
matter  that  is  controverted  among  well-informed  and 
reasonable  critics  and  commentators.  Now  a  great 
cloud  of  difficulty  has  been  made  to  settle  over  the  sub- 
ject treated  of  in  the  fourteenth  chapter  of  this  Epistle ; 
so  that  what  might  seem  quite  intelligible  when  one 
reads  the  Greek  without  assistance,  has  become  an 
enigma,  after  erudite  criticism  has  shed  its  best  light 
upon  it !  Just  now  therefore  I  will  say  no  more  con- 
cerning  the  "Gift  of    Tongues"  than   tliis — That  St. 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  203 

Paul  himself  does  manifestly  regard  this  power  as  a 
miraculous  gift ;  and  as  such  he  explicitly  affirms  his 
own  participation  in  it : — rejoicing  in  the  copiousness 
of  the  faculty  which  he  exercised,  he  says — "  I  thank 
my  God  I  speak  with  tongues  more  than  you  all." 
What  was  it  then  that  he  thus  thought  of  with  devout 
gratitude  ?  Was  it  that  knowledge  of  Hebrew  (or  the 
Aramaic)  of  Greek  and  of  Latin — which  he  had 
acquired  at  Tarsus  in  his  boyhood  ?  Or  was  it  the 
power  of  pouring  forth  a  mindless  gibberish,  intelligible 
to  no  tribe  of  men  on  earth  ? 

It  is  enough  that,  in  this  passage,  while  the  apostle 
exhibits  his  usual  good  sense,  and  his  feeling  of  what  is 
practically  best,  he  speaks  without  hesitation  of  that 
which  he  regarded  as  supernatural. 


CONCLUSION   AS    TO    THE    SEVEN   EPISTLES   WHICH 
AFFIRM    MIRACLES. 

I  HAVE  now  taken  in  their  order  those  documents  of 
the  Canon  which  contain  an  affirmation,  of,  or  allusion 
to,  miracles,  as  currently  taking  place  under  the  eye 
of  the  writer,  or  of  those  whom  he  addresses.  I  have 
especially  given  attention  to  those  five  epistles  of  St. 
Paul  which  are  distinguished  from  the  nine  of  the  same 
writer  that  are  free  from  any  reference  to  the  super- 
natural. 

I  have  pointed  out  these  three  circumstances  attach- 
ing to  these  epistles,  namely,  first,  that  they  are  those 
which,  if  there  be  any  difference,  stand  the  clearest  of 
any  suspicion  of  spuriousness ;  secondly,  that  three  of 
these  epistles  are  those  of  the  entire  numbei' — four- 
teen— which  are  addressed  to  societies  that  had  har- 
boured or  listened  to,  the  personal  enemies  of  the 
apostles,  and  in  addressing  which  the  greatest  caution 
was  needed  ;— and  tliirdly,  that,  if  the  first  Epistle  to 
the  Corinthians  be  excepted — the  affirmation  of  miracles 
is  confined  to  a  single  utterance,  which  is  brief,  distinct, 
and  peremptory 

I  have  also  drawn  your  attention  to  the  fact — that, 
in  each  of  these  instances,  that  authenticated  form  of 
words  is  employed  in  relation  to  which  misintcrpreta- 
(204) 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  205 

tion  was  impossible,  and  to  wliicli  a  clearly  defined 
historical  sense  had  come  to  be  attached. 

But  I  will  now  imagine  that,  instead  of  employing 
this  biblical  formula,  which  none  of  those  who  were 
accustomed  to  the  Greek  version  of  the  Old  Testament 
could  misunderstand,  St,  Paul  had  gone  about  in  quest 
of  a  phrase  which  might  be  susceptible  of  a  rather  less 
rigid  interpretation :  let  us  suppose  him  to  have  used  a 
phrase  of  abstract  coinage — bordering  upon  the  philo- 
sophical, and  which  the  better-educated  among  his 
readers  might  so  have  interpreted  as  to  leave  a  margin 
of  indistictness  whereupon  the  writer  might,  at  least  in 
the  view  of  such  readers,  clear  himself  of  the  charge 
of  direct  falsification.  To  me  it  seems  perfectly  certain 
that  a  religious  leader  in  the  position  of  this  writer,  if 
he  had  been  conscious  that  the  "  miracles  "  of  which  he 
spoke  must,  when  narrowly  looked  into  by  his  adversa- 
ries, melt  away  into  any  thing  or  nothing — into  mere 
exaggerations  of  natural  occurrences,  would  have  bor- 
rowed or  forged  a  phrase  adapted  to  his  purpose ;  and 
that  he  would  most  carefully  have  avoided  that  par- 
ticular form  of  words,  which,  in  the  minds  of  all, 
carried  an  indubitable  meaning  of  the  largest  import. 

Let  us  now  imagine  that  St.  Paul,  who  had  no  nar- 
row acquaintance  Avith  the  resources  of  the  Greek 
language,  had  employed,  when  speaking  of  the  miracles 
that  were  lately  wrought  by  himself,  or  his  colleagues, 
some  one  of  those  very  phrases  which  his  erudite 
countryman  and  contemporary,  Philo,  does  actually 
use  on  analagous  occasions.  For  example,  if  instead 
of  the  tipata.  xaX  arifina,  and  the  several  phrases  (all  of 
biblical  us'age)  which  he  does  apply  to  his  own  miracles, 

18 


206  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

he  had  given  us  a  form  like  the  following,  with  an 
evasive  expletive  inserted,  ttpucnov  6£  ^aao  avfj.l37jvai  xat' 

ixeivov  to;/  ;^poi'Oj',  fifyaT^ovpyrjfict   tr^i   ^rtTfcoj Or  that  he  had 

apologised  for  these  miracles,  as  PiiiLO  does  elsewhere 
in  his  life  of  Moses.  If  it  had  been  so,  there  might 
have  been  room  for  a  supposition  for  which,  in  fact, 
there  is  now  no  room.  The  biblical  form,  used  when 
miracles  of  the  most  amazing  kind  are  intended  to  be 
spoken  of,  had,  in  the  apostolic  time,  come  to  be  applied 
customarily  to  the  miracles  of  the  evangelic  history  ; 
as  appears  from  the  Gospels.  Moreover  the  same  set 
of  words  occurs  thirteen  times  in  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,  always  carrying  the  same  indubitable  sense. 
Once  only,  in  speaking  of  such  events,  does  the  writer 
employ  a  different  form  (xix.  11)  where  it  is — bwdfiai  ts 

ov  raj  fvzovsai  sjtofn  6  ©£05 The  form  is  the  same  in  the 

Apocryphal  books,  as  in  the  Epistles  (Wisdom,  viii.  8, 
X.  16,  EccLES.  xlviii.  14)  in  the  Prophets;  (Jerem. 
xxxii.  20,  Dan.  vi.  27)  in  the  Psalms  ;  cv.  27,  cvi.  7 ; 
and  the  Pentateuch,  very  frequently  : — ExoD.  iii.  20, — • 

IV.  9,  IV.  21,  2o,  Vll.  O T'a  OTj^ild  fiov,  xai  'to.  tipa-ta,  iv  yrj 

AlyvTiTfco — X.   2,  Num.  xiv.  11,  Deut.  iv.  34, — xai  h 

<jj7;UEL0t{,  xai  sv  tipaat'  '. VI.   ^.i,  Kat    ISioxs  Kvpcoj   atj/i.ita   xai, 

T£pttT'a  fiBydxa  xai  Ttovr^pa  sv  Aiyv7tt(x> Vll.  IJ,  td  a'/jfxnu.  xai, 

•id    fiiydxa,     ixava XXXIV.    11,     Ev    Ttaat,  I'otj    ar^ft'ctoi^    xav 

'tepaai'V 

There  are  those  who,  professing  to  admire  the  char- 
acter of  Paul,  would  gladly  bring  him  off  clear  of  the 
imputation  of  having  compromised  himself  with  the 
supernatural,  if  it  could  be  done.  Looking  to  these  five 
epistles  this  attempt  might  perhaps  have  been  made  if 
only  he  had  been  careful  to  avoid  this  biblical  formula, 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF.        207 

and  had  taken  up  in  its  place,  any  vague  abstraction 
of  the  kind  of  which  samples  enough  may  be  found  in 
Philo,  in  Josephus,  and  in  several  of  the  classical 
writers,  when  speaking  of  prodigies. 

Let  us  now  inquire  by  what  means,  if  there  are  any, 
the  supernatural  might  be  severed  from  the  mass  of 
histoi'ic  document  to  which  we  find  it  attached. 

These  means  must  be  such  as  do  not  in  any  way 
violate  the  authentic  rules  of  philological  or  historical 
criticism.  An  attempted  violation  of  such  rules  could 
be  prompted  by  nothing  but  an  ill  intention ;  and  as  in 
this  argument  I  impute  no  bad  motives  to  an  opponent, 
I  am  saved  the  disagreeable  necessity  of  rebutting  any 
supposition  of  that  class. 

Now  we  first  narrow  our  ground  by  putting  out  of 
view  those  fourteen  epistles  upon  which  we  find  no  par- 
ticles of  the  supernatural  adhering.  We  need  not 
inquire  how  to  exclude  miracles  from  writings  in  which, 
in  fact,  none  are  affirmed. 

These  fourteen  epistles  are  of  a  purely  historical 
character :  each  of  them  comes  into  our  hands  bearing 
its  own  credentials,  separately  from  the  others.  Even 
if  ten  of  them  could  be  shown  to  be  spurious,  the  others 
stand  their  ground ;  but  instead  of  this,  a  mere  shadow 
of  doubt  is  all  that  attaches  to  two  or  three  of  the 
number :  and  even  these  avail  as  much  in  argument 
when  imagined  to  be  forgeries,  as  when  admitted  to  be 
genuine. 

Here  then  is  foundation  ample  enough  to  sustain  my 
Belief,  as  a  Christian  :  I  am  willing  to  take  my  stand 
upon  it ;  and  never  shall  I  be  driven  from  this  footing. 
If  I  have  thoroughly  informed  myself  concerning  the 


208       THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF. 

Christianity  of  the  age  of  the  Antonines — reading  the 
entire  extant  evidence — Christian  and  Antichristian — 
then,  in  these  fourteen  epistles  I  find  whatever  should 
be  there,  on  the  supposition  that  this  great  revolution 
which  has  placed  the  civilized  portion  of  the  human  fam- 
ily on  new  ground,  was  real  and  true  in  its  origin,  and 
that  it  was  THE  WORK  OF  God.  The  present  question 
then  relates  solely  to  those  Seven  Epistles  which  imbed 
our  problem. 

Now  these  might  be  disposed  of  if,  in  a  critical  sense, 
they  were  decisively  of  inferior  quality ;  but  they  are 
not  so :  on  the  contrary,  they  are  those  (one  excepted) 
concerning  which  there  has  been,  and  is,  the  least  dif- 
ference of  opinion  among  critics. 

Or  the  supernatural  paragraphs  in  these  epistles 
might  be  excinded  if,  on  any  ground  that  is  recognized 
by  legitimate  criticism,  these  sentences  stood  as  inter- 
polations. It  is  not  so.  On  the  contrary,  as  to  most 
of  them,  these  verses  are  woven  into  the  context,  before 
and  after,  and  are  one  with  the  body  of  the  epistle. 

And  yet,  even  admitting  the  genuineness  of  these 
passages,  we  might  incline  to  attach  an  abated  impor- 
tance to  them  if  any  one  of  the  following  suppositions 
could  be  entertained.  If  they  occurred  in  those  epistles 
only  which  are  addressed  to  the  writer's  colleagues,  or 
to  societies  of  whose  attachment  to  himself,  and  to 
Christianity,  he  was  perfectly  assured.  But  the  very 
contrary  of  this  is  the  fiict. 

— If,  instead  of  these  few  peremptory  affirmations,  we 
found  a  diffuse,  turgid,  and  careless  allusion  to  miracles 
on  almost  every  page  of  the  twenty-one  epistles.  The 
contrary  of  this,  also,  is  the  fact. 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF.        209 

— If,  instead  of  employing,  in  these  few  instances, 
the  well-understood  biblical  foi-mula,  to  which  an  his- 
toric sense  had  come  immovably  to  adhere,  the  writers 
had  quietly  let  themselves  down  through  the  medium  of 
two  or  three  vague  phrases,  of  which  they  might  soon 
have  found  the  type  in  several  writers  of  that  age.  The 
contrary  of  this  also  is  the  fact. 

The  only  remaining  supposition  which  occurs  to  me 
as  at  all  admissible,  if  our  purpose  be  to  set  aside  theso 
passages,  is  this — That,  as  no  miracles  are  specified,  and 
as  no  narratives  of  this  kind  are  given  in  these  epistles, 
it  is  not  certainly  to  be  inferred  that  the  writers  wished 
themselves  to  be  understood  in  any  very  definite  sense, 
when  they  thus  vaguely  affirm  such  to  have  occurred. 
So  we  might  perhaps  suppose  if  no  other  Christian  wri- 
tings of  the  apostolic  age  had  come  into  our  hands. 
But  an  undoubted  book — containing  many  such  narra- 
tives, is  before  us.  I  abstain  from  an  examination  of 
this  Book — the  Acts — at  present,  and  turn  to  it  only 
for  a  moment,  as  it  stands  related  to  the  supposition 
just  named  :  and  I  affirm  first — 

— That  the  historical  relationship  of  this  Book  to  the 
Pauline  Epistles  has  been  so  exhibited,  in  modern  times, 
as  should  exclude  all  question  as  to  the  genuineness  of 
either — the  history,  or  the  so  related,  epistles ;  secondly : 

— That,  in  this  book,  as  I  have  already  said,  the  for- 
mula which  occurs  in  the  epistles  occurs  also — and  as 
often  as  thirteen  times,  and  in  connection,  each  time, 
with  narratives  of  miraculous  events.  In  what  sense 
these  phrases  were  understood  in  the  apostolic  times  is 
thus  put  out  of  doubt  by  this  employment  of  them  in 
such  a  connection. 

18* 


210  THE    IIESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

I  aflirm  therefore,  that  the  apostles  do  implicate  them- 
selves with  the  supeniaturul  element  of  Christianity, 
and  that  thej  do  it  in  the  most  formal  and  distinct  man- 
ner possible ;  and  that  therefore  it  is  only  by  violent 
means  that  the  supernatural  can  be  severed  from  the 
historical,  as  the  two  stand  connected  in  the  Christian 
documents. 

What  those  means  are  which,  in  this  case,  ought  to  be 
regarded  as  "  violent,"  and  should  therefore  be  rejected, 
may  easily  be  determined.  To  solve  the  problem  of 
Christianity  hj  force  is  to  admit  some  supposition,  or  to 
listen  to  an  imputation  to  which  a  cultured  and  well 
ordered  mind  will  never  reconcile  itself;  and  which 
would  never  be  advanced,  at  all,  by  minds  of  any  class, 
except  at  the  impulse  of  some  urgent  argumentative 
necessity. 

I  bring  this  to  an  issue  thus  : — 

Make  the  eflbrt  requisite  for  putting  yourself  men- 
tally into  the  position  of  one  who,  as  yet  knows  nothing 
of  Christianity.  I  put  into  your  hands,  in  succession, 
the  fourteen  Non-Supernatural  Ej)istles — You  sponta- 
neously say  of  them,  "  Whatever  I  may  think  of  this 
TJu'ology,  which  is  so  new  and  amazing,  it  is  manifest 
that  these  writings  embody,  with  great  harmony  of 
intention,  an  elevated  and  consistent  morality;  it  would 
be  well  for  the  world  if  it  would  receive  it.  It  is  also 
manifest  that  the  writers,  whether  they  be  right  or 
wrong  in  their  religious  belief,  are  sincere  in  their  pro- 
fessions of  it : — it  appears  also  that  they  are  sober 
minded,  and  of  good  judgment; — it  is  clear  that  they 
arc  earnestly  afl'ected  in  relation  to  whatever  is  of  un- 


THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  211 

(loiilitcd    iinportaucc,   and    that    tlicy  treat  slightingly 
•what  wc  feel  to  be  indilTcrcnt." 

Thus  far  then  you  will  not  aflirm  tliat  any  of  those 
sinister  imputations  which  you  hold  in  reserve  for  solv- 
ing the  problem  of  Christianity,  would  spontaneously  bo 
suggested  to  you  in  the  course  of  your  New  Testament 
reading.  But  you  next  peruse  the  five  above  mentioned, 
epistles  of  St.  Paul  ;  or  you  take  up  the  Epistle  to  tho 
Komans.  In  reaching  the  close  of  it  you  are  startled 
to  find  the  writer,  with  whoso  inmost  thoughts  you 
had  become  familiar,  boldly  aflinning  that,  in  a  mission- 
ary circuit  of  several  hundred  miles,  he  had  wrought 
miracles,  in  each  town  and  city  as  he  passed. 

Under  the  perplexity  that  has  thus  arisen,  I  direct 
your  attention  to  those  several  conditions  attaching  to 
this  case  which  I  have  just  above  specified.  These,  if 
they  aro  considered  as  they  should  be,  and  if  wo  reject 
unintelligible  evasions — myths,  and  shifts  ; — rejecting, 
in  fact,  what  a  well  constituted  English  mind  must  and 
will  reject  as  frivolous,  impertinent,  vapourous,  and 
absurd,  then  our  alternative  is  just  this. — 

To  yiehl  our  belief  to  Christianity,  as  a  supernatural 
dispensation ; — or,  To  suppose,  I  do  not  well  know 
how  to  put  such  a  supposition  into  words — that  tho 
apostolic  men,  not  one  of  them,  but  all,  stand  as  a 
class  by  themselves,  of  which  no  other  samples  havo 
occurred  among  the  myriad  varieties  of  the  species  ; 
for  they  are  wise  and  mad — they  aro  always  virtu- 
ous and  wicked — they  aro  prudent  and  absurd — in 
an  extreme  degree,  and  they  are  at  all  times  con- 
sistently inconsistent  with  themselves,  and  with  hu- 
man nature. 


212  THE    RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

Language  has  been  framed  for  expressing  things  that 
are^  or  things  that  maj  be  intelligibly  conceived  of. 
You  will  therefore  find  an  extreme  difficulty  in  attempt- 
ing to  give  me,  in  any  definite  shape,  your  own  idea  of 
the  apostles,  the  facts  duly  taken  into  the  account^  on 
the  supposition  that  no  miracles  were  wrought  in  attes- 
tation of  their  ministry.  In  this  attempt  you  will  never 
succeed,  to  your  own  satisfaction. 

I  will  not  tell  you  that  your  supposition  as  to  the 
apostolic  character  is  "uncharitable,"  is  "unwarranta- 
ble," is  "ungenerous,"  and  the  like  ;  for  I  am  content 
to  tell  you  what  is  simply  the  fact,  That  it  is  a  jumble 
of  incoherencies  to  which  no  semblance  of  moral,  or  of 
immoral  unity  can  be  given.  I  do  not  tell  you  that 
your  conception  is  wrong  and  unfair : — for  it  is  no  con- 
ception at  all — it  is  a  naked  absurdity  !  I  will  return 
to  this  subject  at  any  time  if  only  you  will  put  before 
me,  in  a  form  which  I  can  understand,  your  idea  of  the 
apostles — all  the  facts  allowed  for,  on  the  hypothesis  of 
Disbelief. 


THE   FORCE   OP   CONGRUITY,    IN    RELATION    TO    CHRISTI 
ANITY  AND   ITS    MIRACLES.       - 

It  would  next  come  in  order  to  bring  under  consider 
ation  those  Five  Books  of  the  New  Testament  which 
contain  narratives  of  miracles,  blended  with  ordinary 
history,  and  with  discourses— showing  in  detail,  that, 
throughout  these  books,  the  supernatural  and  the  his- 
torical are  indissolubly  commingled.  This  might  soon 
be  shown ;  but  I  abstain  from  this  open  path  for  two 
reasons  ;  first,  because  the  demolition  of  Rationalism 
by  Strauss,  and  its  abandonment  generally,  supersedes 
the  necessity  for  showing  that  the  evangelic  miracles 
cannot  be  explained  away  in  the  manner  that  was 
attempted  by  the  German  writers  of  that  school.  But 
beside  this  reason,  as  I  propose  to  bring  before  you  this 
same  supernatural  element,  considered  in  a  very  differ- 
ent light,  I  wish  to  avoid  the  irksomeness  of  going  over 
the  same  ground  twice,  although  it  would  be  for  differ- 
ent purposes. 

I  must  repeat  what  I  have  already  said,  p.  97,  just 
so  far  as  to  remind  you  that  those  of  our  convictions 
upon  which  we  are  accustomed  to  act  with  the  most 
unhesitating  confidence,  and  to  which  we  commend  our- 
selves without  fear,  when  life  itself,  or  estate,  is  at  risk, 
are  7iot,  or  seldom  are,  those  which  we  may  obtain  by 

(213) 


214  THE    RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

processes  of  catenary  deduction  ;  or  by  a  course  of  rea- 
soning which,  in  a  technical  sense,  is  logical.  It  is  no* 
so.  Man,  such  as  we  find  him  on  the  beaten  road  of  real 
life,  is  no  such  syllogistic  automaton  as  that  he  should 
bring  propositions  in  threes  to  bear  upon  the  business 
and  conduct  of  every  day.  Pedants  do  this,  and  break 
their  heads  in  consequence.  It  is  by  the  force  of  con- 
gruous evidence — it  is  by  help  of  wind  and  tide  together, 
that  we  launch  upon  the  dangerous  atlantic  of  life,  and 
cross  it  in  confidence,  and  reach  port  in  safety. 

The  vast  difference,  as  to  its  bearing  upon  our  prin- 
ciples of  action,  and  our  every-day  habitudes,  between 
catenary  reasoning,  and  THE  force  of  Congruity  is 
felt  in  the  instance  of  the  argument  concerning  Chris- 
tianity more  than  perhaps  in  any  other  case  that  could 
be  named.  Let  it  be  that,  with  favourable  impressions 
on  the  side  of  Christianity,  and  with  a  sincere  wish  to 
confirm  ourselves  in  our  religious  belief,  we  carefully 
read  one  or  two  of  the  best  modern  books  on  the  "  Evi- 
dences." We  follow  the  reasoning,  from  page  to  page, 
and  we  yield  our  aSsent  to  it,  feeling  it  to  be  entirely 
conclusive.  To  frame  a  reply  to  this  chain  of  proofs 
in  any  manner  that  should  be  satisfactory  to  ourselves, 
we  know  to  be  impossible.  And  yet  a  few  days  after 
closing  the  book  the  upshot  of  the  perusal  of  it  has 
been  to  leave  us — not  in  a  state  of  logical  indecision, 
but  only  of  discomfort  and  depression,  as  to  our  con- 
victions ;  and  we  almost  wish  we  had  not  attempted 
thus  to  convince  ourselves. 

We  need  not  go  far  to  find  the  reason' of  such  a 
result.  Those  who  read  books  on  the  "  Evidences  "  in 
the  favourable  mood  which  I  am  now  supposing,  per- 


THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  215 

fectly  know  that,  if  Christianity  be  true  it  is  not  an 
abstract  speculation,  but  a  practical  concernment  for 
every  day,  and  that  among  the  many  claimants  upon 
our  attention,  this  one  claim  stands  foremost.  But  now 
the  reasoning  of  the  book  we  have  just  read  is  out  of 
harmony  with  the  machinery  of  real  life  ;  for  a  man 
does  not  act  at  a  prompting  of  this  sort.  The  argument, 
although  it  be  irrefragable,  comes  upon  us  cross-grained 
as  to  all  our  habitudes  as  deliberative  and  spontaneous 
beings.  In  fact — after  several  failures  in  the  endeavour 
to  feel  and  act  as  Christian  men,  on  the  ground  of  argu- 
ment, among  the  things  and  persons  of  the  real  world, 
we  return  the  book  on  the  "Evidences"  to  a  high  shelf 
— forget  it,  except  to  lend  it  to  a  perplexed  friend, 
and  for  ourselves,  resume  our  Christian  consciousness : 
unconsciously,  but  really,  we  go  back  to  those  undefined 
moral  congruities  which  heretofore  have  sustained  our 
belief;  and  we  abandon  proofs  in  line. 

Nevertheless  as  often  as  we  return  to  the  subject  as 
a  matter  of  argument,  we  find  ourselves  in  a  position 
of  disadvantage.  At  a  point  far  removed  from  the  eye, 
and  at  the  end  of  a  vista  of  logical  evidences,  we  get 
our  view  of-  the  miracles  of  Evangelic  history.  Eor 
a  length  of  time  we  have  been  fixing  the  eye  upon  the 
supernatural,  as  it  appears  when  seen  in  this  perspec- 
tive ;  just  as  one  might  gaze  upon  a  sunrise,  seen 
through  the  bare  trunks  and  naked  branches  of  a  wintry 
forest.  Yet  this  aspect  of  these  objects  is  not  merely 
remote  and  accidental;  but  it  produces  an  impression 
which  is  substantially  untrue. 

Without  any  very  difiicult  effort  of  the  mind,  I  can 
imagine   myself  to  occupy  a  position  whence  I  should 


216  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

look  upon  the  miracles  of  the  Evangelic  History  in 
their  immediate  proximity  to  those  things  with  which, 
actually,  they  always  stood  connected.  I  should  then 
see  the  Supernatural  in  its  relationship  to  the  Infi- 
nite, which  is  its  true  relation.  AYhen  I  place  myself 
in  this  position  I  at  once  discern  the  reason  of  that 
which  otherwise  is  unaccountable,  I  mean  the  fact 
already  noticed,  that  the  apostolic  men,  though  they 
declare  themselves  to  be  conversant  with  miracles,  yet 
so  seldom,  and  with  such  brevity,  mention  them.  From 
this  position,  moreover,  that  perfect  simplicity,  and 
that  calmness  which  has  been  so  often  remarked  as  the 
characteristic  of  the  Gospels,  when  miracles  are  nar- 
rated, appears  only  natural  and  proper. 

There  are  three  mental  conditions,  easily  distinguish- 
able from  each  other,  in  which  I  can  imagine  an 
indubitable  miracle  to  be  witnessed.  The  first  is  that 
of  medieval  credulity — or  an  incurious,  unreasoning, 
inconsequential  passiveness,  to  M'hich  all  things,  natural 
and  supernatural,  come  alike,  and  pass  away  without 
leaving  an  impression.  The  second  state  is  that  of  our 
modern,  dry,  cold,  sophisticated,  scientific  temper  ; — 
scientific  more  than  philosophical.  Witnessed  in  this 
mood,  a  miracle  would  astound  us — it  would  just  curdle 
the  brain,  and  produce  no  effect  whatever  upon  the 
moral  nature. 

But  I  can  form  an  idea  of  a  mental  condition  as  much 
unlike  the  first  of  these  two  states,  as  the  second.  I 
can  imagine  myself  to  have  come  into  a  discernment  of 
those  unchanging  realities  of  the  spiritual  and  moral 
system  which  indeed  affect  my  welfare,  present  and 
future;  so  that  the  witnessing  of  a  miracle  would  pro- 


THE    EESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  217 

duce  a  feeling  entirely  congruous  -vvitli  such  percep- 
tions ;  and  would  neither  astound  nor  agitate  the  mind. 
I  can  imagine  myself  to  have  so  profound  a  sense  of 
primary  moral  truths  as  that  miracles  would  be  con- 
fluent with  the  deep  movements  of  the  soul,  and  would 
produce  no  surge.  I  can  imagine  myself  to  have  such 
a  prospect  of  the  plains  of  immortality — a  prospect 
moral,  not  fanciful,  not  sensuous,  as  that  the  spectacle 
of  the  raising  of  the  dead  should  assort  itself  with  mj 
feelings.  So  to  see  "death  swallowed  up  in  victory," 
would  excite  no  amazement.  I  read  this  very  quietness 
in  the  apostolic  epistle ;  and  it  sheds  the  steady  bright- 
ness of  the  morning  upon  St.  Paul's  discourse  concern- 
ing the  resurrection.  This  great  fact,  concerning  the 
destiny  of  man,  which  he  there  expounds,  I  also  hold 
to  be  a  truth,  undoubted.  But  if,  beside  thus  believing 
it  with  my  modern  logical  persuasion,  if  instead  of  this 
belief,  I  had  St.  Paul's  sight  and  consciousness  of  it, 
then,  like  him,  I  could  speak  of  miracles  briefly,  firmly, 
and  without  a  note  of  wonder. 

The  miracles  of  the  evangelic  history,  come  to  us 
with  the  force  of  Coxgruity,  just  so  far  as  we  can 
bring  ourselves  morally  within  the  splendour  of  those 
eternal  verities  which  are  of  the  substance  of  the  Gos- 
pel. While  we  stand  remote  from  that  illuminated  field, 
they  are  to  us  only  a  galling  perplexity ;  for  we  can 
neither  rid  ourselves  of  the  evidence  that  attests  them ; 
nor  are  prepared  to  yield  ourselves  to  it.  At  this  mo- 
ment the  Christian  argument  is  an  intolerable  torment 
to  hundreds  of  cultivated  minds  around  us. 

In  the  crowd  of  those  who  witnessed  the  miracles  of 
Christ  there  were  some  who  mocked ;  there  were  some 


218  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

"who  gnashed  their  teeth ;  there  were  many  who  mar- 
velled and  applauded,  and  soon  forgot  what  they  had 
seen.  But  there  were  some  into  whose  minds  the  doc- 
trine— the  moral  purport — the  spiritual  reality  of  his 
discourses  had  so  entered  that,  beside  being  conscious 
of  the  fitness  of  which  already  I  have  spoken,  they  felt, 
with  overwhelming  force,  a  Congruity  of  another  kind ; 
I  mean  that  of  these  miracles  with  the  majestic  bearing 
and  style  of  IIiM  who  wrought  them  :  for  he  did  these 
"  mighty  works "  with  the  spontaneous  ease  of  one  in 
whom  this  power,  and  much  more  was  inherent. 

From  what  sources  have  I  gathered  my  idea  of  the 
personal  aspect  and  demeanour  of  Christ  ?  You  will 
say  from  the  groundless  traditions  of  Italian  art — from 
our  modern  religious  poetry — from  the  pulpit,  and  so 
forth.  It  may  be  so  in  part ;  but  the  main  rudiments 
of  this  idea  have  come  to  me — I  am  sure — from  a  yeai'- 
to-year  reading  of  the  Gospels—  commentaries,  transla- 
tions, and  all  modern  accompaniments  out  of  view.  This 
vivid  conception  is  the  genuine  product  of  the  Evan- 
gelic narratives,  to  which  I  have  added  nothing  by 
imaginative  effort.  It  is  not  that  the  writers  have 
described  to  me  this  Person,  or  that  they  have  given 
me  a  leading  hint,  here  and  there,  to  put  me  on  the 
right  tack.  An  image  has  concreted  itself  in  my  mind, 
whether  I  would  or  not.  So  far  as  I  have  laboured 
with  it  at  all,  it  has  been  for  the  purpose  of  reducing 
it  to  its  very  simplest  expression — removing  from  it 
the  pictorial — the  poetic — the  dramatic — the  medita- 
tive decorations,  and  bringing  it  to  consist  with  the 
most  rigid  conception  of  the  plain  historic  reality,  as 
to  the  country — the  age — the  race — the  costume. 


THE    RESTOPtATIOX    OF   BELIEF.  219 

This  idea  of  the  personal  aspect  and  demeanour — 
the  individual  manner  and  style  of  Christ,  I  find  to  be 
congruous  with  the  narratives  of  his  "  mighty  works," 
ON  ONE  SUPPOSITION  ONLY ;  on  any  other  supposition 
the  incongruity  is  irresistibly  revolting.  I  possess  no 
such  power  over  the  intellect,  or  the  moral  intuitions,  or 
the  ideal  faculty,  as  would  be  requisite  for  bringing  any 
such  repellant  conceptions  into  combination.  You  will 
say  that  this  Ideal  is  mine  not  yours ;  that  you  have 
no  such  conception ;  and  therefore  that  you  feel  no 
such  difficulty.  But  now,  indulge  me  while  I  give  you 
credit  for  a  remainder  of  those  sensibilities  which  per- 
haps you  would  disown. 

You  will  not  tell  me  that  a  consciousness  is  unreal, 
merely  because  I  fail  in  my  endeavours  to  give  it  intel- 
ligible expressions,  or  indeed  to  put  it  into  words  at  all. 
Do  not  the  uncultured  minds  around  us  possess  a 
genuine  unconsciousness,  as  to  moral  principles,  in 
behalf  of  which — either  to  explain,  or  to  defend  them, 
they  would  not  have  a  word  to  say  ?  Or  take  an 
instance  such  as  this. —  I  have  a  consciousness  of  the 
vast  difference  between  the  Greek  sculpture  of  the 
purest  times,  and  the  Roman  style,  of  the  imperial  times, 
which  consciousness  is  to  me  as  much  a  matter  of  cer- 
tainty as  is  any  other  thing  whatever  that  has  become 
an  inseparable  part  of  my  existence.  The  difference 
between  the  one  style  of  chipping  marble  into  the 
human  form,  and  the  other,  is  so  clear  in  my  view,  that, 
to  confound  the  two,  or  to  mistake  the  one  for  the 
other,  is  impossible ;  and  yet  I  should  shrink  from  the 
attempt  to  set  this  same  perception  foi'th  in  sentences 
and  paragraphs :  I  can  do  no  such  thing.     Meantime 


220  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

you  might  as  well  tell  me  that  honey  and  molasses  have 
the  same  flavour,  as  try  to  convince  me  that  this  dis- 
criminative feeling  is  a  mere  illusion,  or  that  it  is  a 
vulgar  prejudice,  belonging  to  my  artistic  orthodoxy. 

The  sense  of  congruity  -which  I  have  now  in  view, 
stands   related   to   that  moral  regeneration   which  has 
placed  our  modern  civilization  so  far  in  advance  of  the 
ancient  civilization.     To  the  ancient  civilization — that, 
to  wit,   of  the  Athenian  age,   there  belonged  a  purity 
of  Taste  which  we,  of  this  time,  must  be  content  to 
admire,   and  very  poorly  to  imitate.     But  then  in  our 
modern  literature,  and  in  our  poetry  especially — in  our 
fine    arts — sculpture,  painting,  and  music,    there  is   a 
deep  soul-life  of  which  the  entire  circle  of  ancient  art, 
and  literature  barely  offers  the  faintest  indications.     To 
the  modern  mind   there  has  come  to  belong  an  awful 
capacity  of  feeling,   and  a  liability  to  intensities,  both 
of  suffering  and  of  enjoyment  (the  one  as  well  as  the 
other  intellectual,  not   sensuous)   of  which  the  briirht. 
gay,  surface-loving  mind   of  antiquity  seems    to  have 
known  little  or  nothing.     Then  along  with  this  power 
of  feeling,  striking,   as  it  does,   into  the  roots  of  the 
soul,  there  are  perceptions,  and  instinctive  judgments, 
of    which    it   must    be   said    that    they  are    altogether 
modern   developments  of  humanity  ;   they  are  true  ele- 
ments of  our  nature  ;  but  they  have  newly  been  brought 
from  the  sub-soil. 

It  is  to  the  slow  working  of  Christianity  upon  human 
nature  that  I  attribute  nearly  the  whole  of  this  deeper 
vitality  of  the  modern  mind  :  You  think  otherwise  ;  but 
yet  our  difference  as  to  the  cause  cannot  affect  our 
acknowledgment  of  the  fact.     If  you  should  deny  the 


THE    RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  221 

fact,  I  must  think  of  you  not  merely  as  anti- Christian, 
but  as  downright  pagan. 

Often  and  truly  it  has  been  said  that  the  writers 
of  the  Gospels  were  men  wholly  incapable  of  imagining 
or  of  putting  together  a  consistent  fiction  of  any  kind. 
But  to  say  this  is  to  say  little  in  relation  to  the 
instance  which  I  have  now  in  view  ;  for  the  accordance 
which  comes  upon  my  modern  consciousness  with  so 
irresistible  a  force  is  of  a  sort  to  w^hich  the  ancient 
world  entire,  cultured  and  uncultured — Greek,  Roman, 
or  Jewish,  was  not  alive.  Not  only  were  there  then 
no  writers  skilful  enough,  designedly,  to  bring  together 
those  elements  of  harmony ;  but  even  if  there  had 
been  such  writers,  there  were  then  no  readers  to 
whose  senses  any  such  harmony  would  have  been  cog- 
nizable. 

It  is  allowed  that  the  miracles  of  the  Gospels  are, 
for  the  most  part,  narrated  in  the  fewest  words,  and  in 
the  most  artless  manner.  Then  abreast  of  these  nar- 
ratives, and  intermingled  with  them,  come  the  instances 
of  Christ's  behaviour,  in  various  positions,  and  his 
utterances  of  those  ethical  principles  which  are  pecu- 
liarly Christian.  Now  between  these  elements  which 
are  here  found  in  juxta-position,  there  presents  itself  a 
congruity  which  the  modern  mind  vividly  perceives,  but 
of  which  the  ancient  mind  would  scarcely  have  been 
conscious  at  all.  The  ancient  mind  formed  a  concep- 
tion of  the  Goetes,  and  of  the  Thaumaturge,  in  which 
conception  the  sombre,  inscrutable  element  was  the 
leading  principle.  The  man  so  conceived  of,  and  of 
whom  types  enough,  in  all  their  varieties,  might  be 
seen  in  Egypt,  that  seat  of  jugglery,  was  the  murky  or 

19* 


222  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

the  epileptic  supernaturalist.  Antiquity  had  not  con- 
ceived of  a  worker  of  miracles  in  whose  course  of  life 
and  behaviour  the  working  of  miracles  showed  itself 
as  a  secondary  and  incidental  element,  and  in  whose 
character  Love  was  of  the  substance,  while  the  super- 
natural faculty  was  the  adjunct. 

Whencesoever  the  materials  of  the  Gospels  may 
have  come,  and  it  is  the  ofSce  of  criticism  to  inquire 
whence,  this  is  certain,  that  they  do  convey  an  Idea  of 
a  Person,  possessing,  in  an  extraordinary  degree,  the 
charm  of  Unity,  or  singleness  of  intention.  This  idea 
may  be  variously  expressed :  it  includes  consistency 
of  purpose,  and  the  coherence  of  all  principles  of 
action  ;  it  includes  oneness  of  aim,  from  the  commence- 
ment to  the  close  of  a  course  of  life  :  it  supposes  uni- 
formity of  temper,  and  a  sameness  of  the  impression 
that  is  produced  by  the  Person  upon  other  minds. 
Then  this  idea  excludes  all  those  inconsequential  depar- 
tures from  the  main  purpose  of  a  man's  life  which, 
when  we  witness  them,  prompt  the  exclamation — 
"  How  unaccountable,  and  how  inconsistent  a  being  is 
man,  at  the  best !" 

If  I  wanted  proof  that  this  symmetry,  moral  and 
intellectual,  does  really  belong  to  that  idea  of  the 
person  which  the  Gospels  embody  and  convey,  I  should 
find  it  in  the  fact  that,  amid  all  the  dogmatic  distrac- 
tions that  have  troubled  Christendom,  during  eighteen 
centuries,  there  has  prevailed,  in  all  times,  and  among 
all  Christianized  nations,  a  wonderful  uniformity  as 
to  the  idea  that  has  floated  before  all  minds  of  the 
PERSONAL  Christ.  Wherever  the  four  Gospels  are 
popularly  read,  this  same  conception   forms  itself  and 


THE    RESTORATION     OP     BELIEF.  223 

prevails.  Infancy  spontaneously  acquires  it :  man- 
hood does  not  revise  or  reject  it : — age  holds  it  to  the 
last.  It  is  not  in  consequence  of  the  poverty  of  the 
elements  it  embraces,  or  of  any  vagueness  in  the  mode 
of  conveyance,  that  this  idea  is  so  perfectly  sym- 
metrical. 

Now  observe  that  this  symmetry,  or  harmony  of  the 
elements,  constituting  the  idea  of  Christ  as  a  person, 
embraces  the  miraculous  portions  of  the  evangelic 
narrative,  not  less  than  the  ordinary ;  and  indeed,  if 
there  are  any  parts  of  this  narrative  which  a  reader  of 
correct  taste  would  single  out  as  resplendent  instances 
of  moral  fitness  and  unity,  they  are  precisely  those  that 
narrate  miracles  with  the  most  of  detail. 

It  is  affirmed  by  those  who  reject  every  thing  that 
presents  itself  as  miracles  in  the  Gospels,  that  these 
four  compilations  have  become  what  they  now  are  by 
the  accumulation  of  heterogeneous  fragments,  vague 
traditions,  exaggerated  early  beliefs,  and  myths.  The 
Four  Gospels,  it  is  said,  are  constituted  of  a  few  mor- 
sels of  genuine  history,  mingled  with  the  illusions  of 
the  popular  mind,  that  mind  being  then  in  a  state  like 
the  "  troubled  ocean,  casting  up  mire  and  dirt  ;"  and 
then  it  must  be  believed  that,  out  of  a  random  con- 
fluence, such  as  this,  there  has  come  a  Personal 
Conception  which  is  not  merely  morally  beautiful, 
in  the  highest  degree,  but  which,  beyond  all  com- 
parison, is  symmetrical,  and  is  exempt  from  dis- 
cordant adjuncts.  Are  the  chances  as  a  million  to 
one,  or  in  what  other  proportion  are  they,  that  a 
conglomerate,  mingling  the  true  and  the  false  (for  you 
must   except   against  all  the  miracles   as  false)   should 


224  THE    RESTORATION   OF    LELIEF. 

present  an  instance  of  congruity   to   whicli   no   equal 
can  be  found  ? 

All  the  world,  that  is  to  say,  readers  of  the  Gospels, 
ten  thousand  to  one,  are  conscious  of  this  congruity, 
and  discern  this  moral  beauty.  You  say  you  see  little 
or  nothing  of  the  sort ;  on  the  contrary,  in  the  course 
of  a  strict  criticism  of  these  writings  you  have  detected 
— how  many  is  it  ? — ninety-nine,  or  a  hundred-and-one, 
discrepancies  (these  gospel  contradictions  constituting, 
just  now,  the  stock  entire  of  Disbelief);  or  you  admit 
a  something  of  harmony  in  the  merely  historic  "  Jesus 
of  Nazareth ;"  but  you  spurn  the  miraculous  portion 
of  the  narrative.  Yet  you  cannot  effect  this  separa- 
tion ;  for  the  harmony  is  not  divisible.  The  super- 
natural cleaves  to  the  individual ;  and  the  two 
elements  constitute  together  the  one  person. 

Among  these  miracles  there  are  no  portents — such 
as  are  related  by  classic  writers ;  there  are  no  exhibi- 
tions of  things  monstrous  ; — there  are  no  contrarieties 
to  the  order  of  nature ;  there  is  nothing  prodigious, 
there  is  nothing  grotesque.  Nor  among  them  are  there 
any  of  that  kind  that  might  be  called  theatric.  There 
are  no  displays  of  supernatural  power,  made  in  the 
presence  of  thousands  of  the  people,  summoned  to  wit- 
ness them.  Although  claiming  to  be  sent  of  God  into 
the  world,  with  a  sovereign  authority,  Christ  did  not, 
as  Elijah  had  done,  convene  the  people,  and  then  chal- 
lenge his  enemies  to  dispute  with  him  his  mission  by 
help  of  counter-attestations. 

Taken  singly,  and  when  regarded  in  relation  to  the 
circumstances  out  of  which  each  of  them  arose,  the 
evangelic  miracles  were  as  spontaneous,    and,  in  this 


THE  RESTORATION  OP  BELIEF.         225 

sense,  they  were  as  natural,  as  would  be  the  acts  of  any 
one  of  ourselves  who  while  walking  up  and  down  in  this 
world  of  suifering.  should  suddenly  become  conscious 
of  a  power  to  give  effect  to  the  promptings  and  yearn- 
ings of  pity.  When  I  tread  the  floor  of  an  hospital — 
what  is  it  that  I  would  do  if  I  could  ?  It  is  that 
which  the  Saviour  of  men  did  at  the  impulse  of  the 
very  same  sympathies,  as  often  as  the  "  sick,  and  the 
maimed,  and  the  blind"  were  brought  in  crowds,  and 
laid  at  his  feet — "  He  healed  them  all." 
.  What  we  have  before  us  is  not  the  Thaumaturge, 
going  about  to  astound  the  multitude  ;  but  it  is  the 
Man,  whose  human  affections  are  in  alliance  with 
Omnipotence.  That  hand  uplifted,  while  the  lips 
utter  an  axiom  of  virtue,  symbolizes,  at  once  perfect 
intelligence,  absolute  goodness,  and  irresistible  power. 
If  I  can  imagine  myself  to  stand  in  that  presence,  at 
such  a  time,  I  should  have  felt  that  the  fixedness  of  the 
course  of  nature  is  only  an  arbitrary  and  temporary 
constitution  ;  and  that  it  must  be  less  constant  than  are 
those  energies  of  love,  which  are  eternal.  In  the  pre- 
sence of  him  v/hose  volitions  flow  out  into  act,  without 
an  interval,  the  difference  between  the  natural  and 
the  supernatural,  if  it  has  not  already  vanished,  seems 
to  tremble  upon  the  balance ;  for  nothing  can  be  more 
natural  than  that  omnipotent  compassion  should  have 
its  way.  What  is  this  material  universe,  in  its  vast- 
ness,  and  its  variety,  but  the  product,  every  moment, 
of  the  perpetual  will  of  the  Creator  ?  If  we  believed 
ourselves  to  stand  near  to  HiM  in  whom  the  perfections 
of  the  Infinite  Being  dwelt  bodily,  a  sovereign  volition 


226  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

of  one  kind  would  not  be  accounted  more  difficult,  or 
strange,  than  volitions  of  another  kind. 

Considerations  of  this  sort  are  thrown  out  as  they 
suggest  themselves,  and  they  may  be  admitted  or  re- 
jected. What  I  insist  upon  may  be  condensed  in  these 
four  allegations. 

i. — A  distinct  Individuality,  in  the  historic  sense 
of  the  word,  presents  itself,  in  the  perusal  of 
the  Four  Gospels :  all  the  world  feels  this, 
and  has  felt  it  in  every  age. 
ii. — By  the  consent  of  mankind,  or  the  involuntary 
suffrage  of  Christianized  nations,  ancient  and 
modern,  a  perfect  individual  idea,  combining 
the  intellectual  and  moral  qualities  of  One 
who  is  wise,  and  good,  and  who  is  possessed 
of  super-human  power  and  authority,  is  em- 
bodied in  the  Four  Gospels. 
iii. — This  harmony,  or,  as  we  call  it,  beauty  of  cha- 
racter, in  which  there  is  no  distortion,  and 
with  which  nothing  is  mingled  that  is  incohe- 
rent, is  spread  over  the  entire  surface  of  the 
evangelic  narratives,  embracing  the  superna- 
tural incidents  of  the  life  of  Christ,  not  less 
than  the  natural.  In  these  narratives  no 
seams,  or  joints,  can  be  discerned,  showing 
where  the  spurious  portion  has  been  spliced 
on  to  the  genuine  ;  but — 
iv. — If  we  reject  Christianity,  as  true  in  its  own 
sense,  that  is  to  say,  as  attested  by  miracles, 
then  we  must  solve  the  problem  before  us  by 
means  of  one  of  two  suppositions,  or  of  some 
other,  not  essentially  differing  from  the  one  or 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  227 

the  other,  each  of  which,  as  it  comes  in  turn 
to  be  considered,  is  inadmissible,  and  insuf- 
ferable.    These  suppositions  are  either — That 
historic  reality  whatever  has  formed  the  sub- 
stratum of  the  Gospel  history ;  in  this  case  a 
perfect  individuality  has  sprung  out  of  a  con- 
geries of  illusions;  or  — The  merely  natural 
portions  of  the  evangelic  history  being  true, 
the  supernatural  portions  have  been  imagined, 
contrived,   and  fitted  to  their  places,  with  so 
profound  a  skill  as  to  defy  all  power  of  criti- 
cism to  trace  the  joinings. 
Let  Christianity  solve  its  own  problem  in  its  own  way, 
and  then  we  stand  clear  of  all  endless  perplexities — 
having  before  us,  in  perfect  symmetry — the  Christ  of 
God — the  Saviour  of  the  world. 

Let  Christianity  solve  its  OAvn  problem,  in  its  own 
way,  and  then  not  only  does  this  perfect  congruity 
ensue  connecting  the  Personal  Character  of  Christ 
Avith  his  miraculous  acts ;  but  a  congruity  connecting 
also  these  miracles  with  the  Great  Scheme  of  which 
they  are  the  adjuncts. 

At  intervals  of  frequent  recurrence  during  the  last 
two  hundred  years,  Christian  writers  have  carried  on 
an  argument,  the  conditions  of  which  have  compelled 
them  to  regard  the  miracles  recorded  in  the  Gospels 
under  the  one  aspect  of  their  present  availahleness,  for 
the  logical  purpose  of  establishing  the  truth  of  Chris- 
tianity, as  a  revelation  from  Heaven.  Thus  to  appeal 
to  these  supernatural  attestations  is,  no  doubt,  a  legiti- 
mate mode  of  defence  against  infidelity.  And  yet  it  is 
not   while   we  are  placing  ourselves  in   this  accidental 


228  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

position,  or  when  driven  in  upon  it  bj  sophistry,  that 
we  shall  ourselves  be  conscious  of  the  real  meaning  of 
those  same  events  as  related  to  the  Scheme  of  Reli- 
gion which  they  serve  to  attest.  This  scheme,  so  far 
as  it  is  unfolded  in  the  Scriptures,  or  may  be  thence 
gathered,  inferentially,  grasps  the  destinies  of  the  human 
family  from  the  first,  and  so  stretches  itself  out  in  pros- 
pect as  to  leave  nothing  connected  with  those  destinies 
which  it  does  not  embrace  and  provide  for. 

Christianity  must  be  looked  at  in  its  own  light.  So 
looked  at,  it  is  seen  to  fill  all  time,  and  to  lay  its 
hand  upon  the  human  species,  comprehensively,  and 
absolutely.  No  child  of  man  is  born  beyond  its 
domain ;  none  shall  ever  effect  his  escape  into  regions 
where  its  authority  is  not  recognized. 

If  the  Gospel  be  thus  thought  of  in  the  way  in  which 
itself  claims  to  be  considered,  it  will  follow  that  the 
ministry  of  Christ,  as  narrated  by  the  Evangelists,  must 
be  misunderstood  so  long  as  it  is  regarded  as  a  course  of 
events  bounded  by  the  initial  and  the  closing  year  of 
his  life  among  men.  Whether  we  number  ourselves  with 
believers,  or  with  unbelievers,  we  shall  continue  to  mis- 
interpret the  facts,  or  to  be  perplexed  by  them,  while 
we  keep  the  eye  upon  that  narrow  field  of  five-and- 
thirty  years. 

You  will  tell  me  I  am  about  to  assume  the  truth  of 
Christianity  in  order  that  I  may  show  it  to  be  true.  I 
admit  that  it  is  so,  in  great  measure ;  and  it  must  be  so, 
in  the  nature  of  things.  So  long  as  your  mood  of  mind 
is  this,  that  you  will  grant  nothing  which  it  is  possible 
for  you  to  deny,  you  will  catch  only  a  glimpse  of  things 
disadvantageously  presented  to   the  eye.     But   if  you 


THE    RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  229 

allow  me  to  exhibit  the  same  objects  in  their  true  posi- 
tion, and  in  their  natural  proportions,  you  will  yourself 
see  them  to  be  real.  After  this  you  will  not  ask  me 
to  follow  you  from  point  to  point  in  so  rigid  a  manner. 

If  I  undertook  to  teach  you  the  modern  astronomy, 
and  you  would  at  once  grant  that  my  interpretation  of 
the  visible  heavens  is  the  true  one,  I  should  be  able  to 
convince  you  that  it  is  so  in  much  less  time,  and  by  a  far 
less  painful  process,  than  as  if  you  make  it  a  point  of 
honour  to  dispute  every  inch  of  ground. 

In  this  present  Tract  I  am  not  aware  that  I  have 
assumed  any  thing,  or  any  thing  material — which  a  well- 
informed  and  ingenuous  opponent  can  show  to  to  be  dis- 
putable. But  it  is  not  while  following  evidences,  step 
by  step,  that  the  harmony  of  truth  can  be  exhibited.  In 
the  next  Tract  I  propose  to  choose  my  ground  with 
more  freedom — to  assume  the  truth  of  that  which  I  know 
to  be  true,  and  to  employ  myself  in  the  more  hopeful 
labour  of  setting  forth  those  great  consistencies  among 
the  principles  and  the  facts  of  Christianity  in  regarding 
which  its  truth  commands  an  assent  which  we  yield 
cordially. 


In  several  places,  in  these  pages,  and  as  occasion 
arose,  I  have  remanded  the  question  of  the  Inspiration 
of  the  Scriptures,  as  not  involved  in  the  course  of  argu- 
ment which  I  am  now  pursuing.  It  is  manifest  that 
these  two  subjects — The  historic  reality  of  Christi- 
anity— claiming  to  be — Religion  given  by  God  to  man, 
and  the  Inspiration  of  the  canonical  books,  are  scpar- 

20 


230        THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF. 

able  in  a  logical  sense.  And  not  only  are  they  separa- 
ble, SO  as  that  they  may  be  considered  and  discussed 
irrespectively  the  one  of  the  other,  but  they  are,  in  my 
opinion,  best  kept  apart — especially  so  when  we  have  to 
do  with  those  who  profess  Disbelief;  for  recent  disbe- 
lief rests  itself  almost  entirely  upon  allegations  that 
take  their  force  from  a  mistaken  apprehension  of  the 
doctrine  of  Inspiration. 

But  if  these  two  questions  are  separable,  and  if  they 
should  be  kept  separate,  then  it  is  manifest  that  the  one 
with  which  I  have  concerned  myself  in  these  pages  must 
have  the  precedence  of  the  one  which  I  remand.  It 
must  be  a  very  logical  course  to  infer  the  historic  truth 
of  the  Gospel  from  the  alleged  inspiration  of  the  books 
which  bring  it  to  our  knowledge.  To  say — and  to  say 
it  to  an  opponent — Christianity  is  true  because  the  Gos- 
pels and  Epistles  are  inspired  books,  is  indeed  to  make 
a  very  unscrupulous  use  of  the  petitio  principii. 

This  logical  sequence  of  the  one  subject  as  related  to 
the  other  is  quite  obvious ;  and  scarcely  less  so  is  the 
necessity  at  this  present  time,  of  establishing  our  posi- 
tion immovably  as  Christians,  upon  the  ground  of  a 
belief  that  is  purely  historic.  That  this  may  be  done 
I  have  a  perfect  confidence.  When  it  has  been  done 
such  inferences  will  be  seen  inevitably  to  follow  as  must 
leave  nothing  worth  the  contending  for  on  the  side  of 
Disbelief. 

If  Christianity  be  true — historically —its  miracles 
included — and  if  indeed  "  Christ  rose  from  the  dead 
according  to  the  Scriptures,"  then  the  Avritings  which 
bring  facts  such  as  these  to  our  knowledge  will  take  a 
place  of  autliority  in   our  mind  and  conscience  whicii. 


THE   RESTORATION   OP   BELIEF.  231 

practically,  and  as  to  their  influence  in  determining  our 
faith  and  our  conduct,  must  be  very  nearly  the  same 
whatever  may  be  the  theory  or  the  opinion  we  adopt 
(among  the  many  that  have  been  advanced)  concerning 
Inspiration. 

That  these  theories  or  opinions,  on  a  subject  so  ardu- 
ous, and  so  important,  are  all  nearly  on  a  level  as  to 
their  intrinsic  merits,  Pam  far  from  professing  to  think  ; 
but  I  think  that  among  those  who  have  already  yielded 
to  the  force  of  the  evidence  which  proves  Christianity 
to  be  true,  the  grounds  of  difference  will  be  continually 
becoming  more  narrow,  until  a  substantial  agreement 
shall  have  taken  place,  and  controversy  on  the  subject 
die  away. 

If  now  I  may  suppose  myself  to  have  to  do  with  a 
reasonable  and  ingenuous  opponent,  I  would  ask  such 
a  one  to  forego  the  small  and  transient  advantage 
which  he  may  seize  while  he  fights  the  doctrine  of  Inspi- 
ration. Let  him  deny  himself  any  such  momentary  tri- 
umph, and  manfully  encounter  the  historic  argument — 
the  alleged  inspiration  of  the  books  not  considered.  I 
might  well  ask  such  an  opponent  to  yield  this  point, 
simply  because  it  is  reasonable  so  to  do  ;  but  further  I 
will  ask  it  because  he  who  makes  the  request — which  is 
in  itself  reasonable,  does  so  in  a  mood  which  entitles 
him  to  be  listened  to. 

While  earnestly  wishing  that  the  reader  of  these 
Tracts  may  forget  the  Writer  and  think  only  of  the 
argument,  I  have  persuaded  myself  that  two  inferences 
concerning  him  would,  in  a  manner,  whisper  themselves 
in  the  ear  of  every  candid  reader.  The  first  of  these 
inferences  is  this — That  the  writer  is  no  timid  waverer 


232  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

between  belief  and  disbelief,  looking  about  for  expe- 
dients whereby  to  eflfect  a  compromise  of  the  con- 
troversy now  on  foot.  The  second  inference  is  this, 
That,  how  decisive  soever  may  be  his  own  convictions 
as  a  Christian,  he  harbours  no  ill  feeling  toward  those 
to  whom  he  opposes  himself;  and  that,  as  well  on  the 
ground  of  temperament,  as  of  principle,  he  is  as  exempt 
as  most  men  from  religious  arrogance,  and  as  little 
addicted  to  dogmatism. 

As  to  the  question  of  Inspiration,  second  in  impor- 
tance to  no  article  of  a  religious  man's  belief — I  may 
perhaps  find  myself  emboldened  hereafter  to  offer  to  the 
intelligent  and  candid  reader  my  thoughts  upon  that 
arduous  subject. 


III. 


THE   MIRACLES   OF   THE    GOSPELS   IN   THEIR 

RELATION  TO  THE  PRINCIPAL  FEATURES 

OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  SCHEME. 


The  time  that  has  elapsed  since  I  last  placed  before 
you  my  view  of  the  Christian  Evidences  has  allowed 
me,  not  merely  to  reconsider  my  proposed  line  of  argu- 
ment in  following  up  what  I  have  written,  but  to 
think  of  it  as  related  to  the  shifting  position  of  the 
contrary  opinion,  or  as  we  say,  of  Disbelief. 

It  is  matter  of  course,  if  one  would  not  be  beating 
the  air,  that  one  should  aim  to  write  what  is  season- 
able as  well  as  what  is  abstractedly  and  always  true. 
Yet  as  to  that  heterogeneous  body  of  opinions  to 
which  the  term  Disbelief  may  be  applied  generically, 
two  or  three  months  is  a  long  time  within  which  it  may 
be  assumed  to  have  undergone  no  remarkable  change. 
A  year  may  have  seen  revolutions  and  catastrophes 
take  place  in  the  history  of  a  mass  so  inorganic ;  and 
as  to  two  years,  within  that  compass  the  "  Leaders  of 
the  public  mind"  may  have  exchanged  positions,  and 
several  philosophies  may  in  their  turn  have  claimed 
submission  as  Positive  and  have  come  to  be  for- 
gotten. 

Besides  the  wish  to  write  seaso7iahhj,  I  have  a  great 
wish  to  write  temperately  ;  that  is  to  say,  with  perfect 
calmness,  and  as  mindful  of  the  dictates  of  charity 
towards  the  adverse  party.  Now  the  passage  of  time 
does  much  in  calming  that  eagerness  of  the  polemical 
mood  which  impels  us  at  any  moment  to  violate  can- 

(235) 


236  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

dour.  While  holding  back  from  pen  and  ink  for  a 
year  or  two,  one  may  have  come  so  to  generalise 
one's  views  as  to  the  meaning  of  a  controversy,  and 
as  to  its  destined  issue  as  must  affect  one's  feelings 
towards  those  who,  on  the  opposite  side,  are  urging  it 
forward. 

Although  it  is  certain  that  I  can  never  regard 
with  cordial  feelings  those  who  are  employing  con- 
spicuous talents  with  unwearied  zeal  in  the  work  of 
loosening  the  hold  which  salutary  truths  have  upon 
the  minds  of  men ;  nevertheless  the  first  risings  of 
instinctive  resentment  will  have  been  checked  when 
I  have  learned  to  think  of  them  as  the  agents  in  a 
movement  which  is  written  in  the  book  of  fate,  and 
the  beneficial  issue  of  which  I  see  to  be  near  at 
hand. 

The  recent  outburst  of  antagonism  toward  Chris- 
tianity may  be  contemplated  by  Christian  men  from 
opposite  points  of  view;  as  for  example;  I  might, 
with  reason,  as  many  Christian  men  do,  look  at  this 
modern  "Infidelity"  and  "Impiety"  with  feelings  of 
dismay,  disgust,  and  indignation,  as  a  wanton  outrage 
upon  society;  and  I  might  be  wrought  up  to  a  pitch 
of  zeal,  impelling  me  to  make  proclamation,  "  Who 
is  on  the  Lord's  side? — who?"  and  then  to  vent  my 
feelings  in  terms  that  cover  curses.  There  might  be 
reason  in  such  a  mood  of  mind  as  this ;  albeit  it  does 
not  suit  my  individual  temperament.  When,  in  so 
many  family  circles,  one  finds  young  persons  of  intel- 
ligence and  moral  promise,  who  have  thrown  away  a 
well-established  religious  belief,  taking  in  exchange 
for  it  a  contemptible  scntimentalism — a  mere  dream, 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  237 

that  is  recommended  neither  by  logic  nor  manliness  of 
purport ; — and  when  one  sees  that  these  victims  have 
fallen  by  arts  of  licentious  sophistry ;  when,  in  min- 
gling with  the  artizan  class  in  manufacturing  districts, 
one  hears  men  uttering  blasphemies,  they  know  not 
how  impious,  which  they  have  picked  up,  as  choice 
morsels,  from  out  of  the  Sunday  filth  with  which  vile 
writers  are  supplying  "  the  demand  ;" — when,  beyond 
this,  one  listens  to  too  authentic  information  as  to 
the  spread  of  an  unenglish  disingenuousness  among 
educated  men  who  are  persuading  themselves  to  do 
on  Sunday  what  they  would  scorn  to  do  on  any  other 
day  of  the  week ; — when  one  meets  with  persons  of 
cultured  taste  who  give  an  indulgent  ear  to  any  sort 
of  shining  ribaldry  that  may  help  them  to  shake  off 
the  remains  of  a  troublesome  "educational  prejudice;" 
■when  things  such  as  these  meet  the  eye  and  ear  on 
all  sides,  those  whose  own  belief  is  steadfast,  and  who 
know  what  must  be  the  issue  of  a  national  lapse  into 
atheism,  are  apt  to  fire  up,  and  to  make  onslaught 
upon  the  authors  of  so  much  mischief,  and  to  do  so  in 
the  temper  of  one  who  rushes  in  to  seize  an  incendiary 
by  the  shoulder. 

But  these  very  same  facts  may  be  looked  at  from 
another  and  an  opposite  position.  Yet  in  defining 
this  other  position  some  explanation  is  needed ;  for 
one  may  easily  be  misunderstood  on  this  ground  by 
nervous  good  folks.  A  word  briefly  here,  and  more 
onward  in  this  Tract. 

It  is  implied  in  the  very  theorem  of  Christianity,  if 
it  be  regarded  as  a  body  of  truth  sent  dovm  to  work 
its  way  in  a  world  out  of  order,  and   if  it  is  to  offer 


238        THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF. 

no  solution  of  the  dark  problems  of  that  world,  that, 
from  time  to  time,  it  should  evolve  contrary  scheme : 
of  belief,  or  theoretic  antagonisms,  which  draw  their 
life  and  meaning,  and  their  intensity,  out  of  itself. 
Heaven's  own  truth  will  not  fail  at  epochs  to  bring 
the  insoluble  problems  of  this  present  evil  world  to 
press  with  an  intolerable  weight  upon  the  minds  of 
men — and  usually  upon  the  choicest  minds.  Those 
deep  principles  of  mundane  regeneration  which  Chris- 
tianity has  put  in  movement,  and  which  it  keeps  in 
movement  by  new  impulses  from  age  to  age,  often 
take  effect  upon  single  minds,  and  upon  communities, 
in  a  convulsive  manner,  and  almost  with  a  mortal 
violence.  The  Gospel  scheme,  if  submitted  to  analysis, 
might  be  shown  to  carry  in  its  depths  the  yeast  of 
these  periodic  fermentations.  Pardon  me  here  a  jum- 
ble of  figures.     If  this  system  were  not  immortal  it 

>  must  long  ago  have  been  devoured  by  its  own  progeny. 

i  A  false  system  either  could  not  concoct  such  perilous 
energies ;  or  if  it  could,  would  not  have  survived  the 
first  outburst  of  them. 

Christianity,  until  it  has  reached  its  next  stage — 
that  of  acknowledged  supremacy  in  relation  to  human 
affairs — cannot  be  imagined  to  live  in  it  on  any 
other  possible  condition  than  that  of  passing  through 
frequently  recurrent  seasons  of  deadly  conflict  with 
adverse  principles,  which,  though  the  germs  of  them 
are  universally  diffused,  are  never  quickened  except 
when  they  come  into  collision  with  eternal  truth.  To 
this  subject,  momentous  as  it  is,  and  too  little  regarded, 
I  must  again,  in  this  Tract,  call  your  attention  ;  for  the 
present  I  advert  to  it  only  for  the  purpose  of  showing 


THE    RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  239 

liow  these  views  affect  the  feeling  I  entertain  toward 
those  whe  now  stand  forward  as  leaders  of  the  move- 
ment which  is  to  issue,  as  they  think,  in  the  over- 
throw of  all  Christian  Belief. 

The  DiSBLEiEF  of  these  last  days,  so  far  as  it  is 
a  scheme  of  doctrine,  may  be  shown  to  be  a  birth 
of  Christian  doctrine.  The  Atheism,  partly,  and  the 
Theism,  entirely,  of  the  present  time  is  a  heresy,  full 
of  Christian  sap.  By  calling  it  Christian,  I  mean  that 
it  has  no  meaning  at  all  except  that  which  it  has 
wrung  from  elements  of  Christian  belief,  brought  into 
collision  one  with  another.  Atheism,  in  these  days, 
is  not,  as  of  old,  a  metaphysic  abstraction,  or  a  cold 
paradox ;  but  it  is  a  living  creature,  speaking  with 
a  loud  voice,  and  showing  a  ruddy  cheek,  because  it 
has  drawn  life-blood  from  that  which  can  spare  much, 
and  yet  live.  If  the  Gospel,  the  destruction  of  which 
is  so  eagerly  desired  by  some  among  us,  were  actually 
to  breathe  its  last,  not  one  of  the  schemes  of  doctrine 
which  is  now  offered  to  us  in  its  stead  would  thence- 
forward draw  another  breath.  Universal  nonbelief, 
which  is  the  death  of  the  human  soul  toward  God 
and  immortality,  would  instantly  ensue. 

But  there  is  no  fear  of  the  coming  on  of  an  hour 
of  darkness,  such  as  that  would  be.  Impiety,  while 
it  has  Christian  blood  in  its  veins,  will  henceforward, 
as  now,  start  up  to  say  its  say,  and  to  trouble  our 
love  of  ease.  It  will  do  so  because  Christianity  itself, 
which  is  now  the  only  source  of  moral  life  in  the 
world,  is  immortal,  and  will  continue  not  only,  as 
heretofore,  to  "satisfy  her  poor  with  bread,"  but  to 
send  out  broken  meat  to  her  enemies,  to  the  end  that 


240  THE    RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

they  may  not  starve.  We  shall  continue,  therefore, 
both  to  Believe,  and  to  contend  with  Disbelief;  but 
•we  shall  not  fall  into  Nonbelief. 

This  course  of  things  is  not  merely  in  a  logical  sense 
inevitable,  but  it  is  highly  useful ;  it  is  indispensable 
if  not  to  the  conservation  of  the  Gospel,  yet  to  the 
restoration  of  its  forces.  Do  you  imagine  that  I  can 
so  think  of  the  good  Christian  folks  of  this  present 
time,  as  to  their  judgment,  as  to  their  intelligence, 
or  as  to  their  conscientious  diligence,  as  that  I  could 
be  willing  to  leave  Christianity,  in  their  hands,  undis- 
turbed and  irresponsible  ?  far  from  it.  The  work  that 
is  needed  to  be  done,  from  time  to  time,  and  especially 
at  this  time,  is  of  a  sort  which  perfunctory  good 
intentions  will  never  attempt,  and  which  conventional 
wisdom  knows  not  how  to  set  about.  Let  me  here 
speak  with  reverence : — God  will  perform  this  work, 
and  will  call  to  it  those  who,  as  to  their  calling,  will 
work  at  it  in  the  dark. 

Just  in  proportion  as  there  comes  upon  me  a  deeper 
sense  of  the  awful  reality  of  the  Christian  scheme,  and 
of  its  bearing  upon  the  welfare  of  the  human  family, 
now  and  hereafter,  do  I  feel  distrustful  of  the  easy, 
over-weening,  and  egotistic  Christianism  of  Christian 
people.  At  the  impulse  of  this  uneasiness  I  am  fain 
to  cry  out,  looking  across  the  road  to  the  ranks  of 
"Infidels  and  Atheists" — "Friends!  come  over  and 
help  us ; — set  the  house  on  fire,  and  then  we  shall 
shake  off  our  illusions,  and  do  our  duty." 

The  earliest  developed  of  the  beneficial  results  of 
an  outburst  of  Infidelity  is  this,  that  it  compels  intelli- 
gent Christian  men   to  look    anew  to   the  ground  on 


THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  241 

wliicli  they  stand,  to  sift  the  "  Evidences,"  and  thus 
to  regain  logical  possession  of  their  religious  persua- 
sion. This  is  well ;  and  so  is  the  second  consequence 
of  such  a  fermentation — namely,  the  throwing  off  from 
the  Christian  body,  as  expressed  in  the  formularies 
and  the  conventional  style  of  churches  and  commu- 
nions,  sundry  superstitions  and  superannuations,  which 
the  "  Enemy"  in  the  heat  of  action  has  snatched  hold 
of  and  splintered,  and  which  no  one  thenceforward  will 
attempt  to  restore  to  their  places :  these  relics  are  left 
to  strew  the  field  of  battle. 

But  there  is  a  result  which  is  far  more  important 
than  either  of  these,  consequent  upon  a  time  of  out- 
spoken impiety,  and  of  which  impiety  Christianity, 
being,  as  it  is,  the  only  truth  now  extant  among  men, 
is  necessarily  the  object.  This  momentous  interaction, 
partly  logical,  partly  moral  and  spiritual,  is  of  this  kind  : 

In  the  course  of  the  controversy  now  in  progress  a 
marked  approximation  is  every  day  made,  on  both  sides, 
toward  the  point  of  intersection  whereat  the  two  be- 
liefs, the  Christian  and  Antichristian,  must  come  to  a 
final  issue.  In  the  progress  of  debate  we  are  drawing 
on  toward  that  ground — a  very  limited  space,  which  all 
men  see  to  be  the  area  whereupon  one  question  only 
shall  remain  to  be  determined,  in  this  way,  or  in  that. 

In  a  manner  which  is  perfectly  conspicuous,  and 
which  no  man  of  clear  intellect  can  misunderstand,  the 
religious  controversy  of  this  passing  time  is  bearing 
us  forward  toward  a  single  issue.  The  alternative,  the 
only  alternative  now  in  front  of  the  cultured  branches 
of  the  human  family,  is  tliis — Christianity  or  Athm- 
ISM.     All  lines  of  thought  are  visibly  tending  in   to 

21 


242  THE   RESTORATION   OF  BELIEF. 

this  point :  all  men  who  are  well  informed,  and  whose 
habits  of  thought  are  unshackled,  have  long  ago  come 
to  see  this,  or  they  are  coming  to  see  it,  or  (for  we 
should  save  a  corner  for  the  less  robust)  are  convul- 
sively struggling  to  hold  themselves  off  from  it. 

What  I  mean  here  by  Christianity,  is  the  Gospel, 
in  its  plenitude  and  its  amplitude,  interpreting  itself 
in  its  own  way,  and  speaking  among  men  in  a  tone  of 
authority  from  which  there  is  no  appeal. 

What  I  mean  by  Atheism  I  do  not  well  know  how 
otherwise  to  define  than  by  saying  that  it  is  the  pro- 
position which  stands  last  in  logical  order  among  those 
which  the  human  reason  can  put  into  words,  intelligibly, 
concerning  the  universe,  or  the  compass  of  phenomena, 
external  and  internal,  with  which  Ave  have  to  do. 

One  feels  that  this  alternative,  and  nothing  short  of 
it,  is  near  in  front  of  us,  because,  on  the  one  side, 
those  many  ill-judged  and  crazy  schemes  for  effecting 
a  compromise  with  infidelity,  which  of  late  have  been 
propounded  by  intelligent  Christian  men,  all  carry  upon 
them  the  indications  of  their  origin  in  faltering  belief, 
in  mistaken  discretion,  and  in  confusedness  of  brain. 
AVe  may  be  sure  that  no  such  slender  devices  as  these 
can  have  power  to  check  that  mighty  movement  to 
which  we  are  all  of  us  committed,  or  can  save  us  from 
its  issue.  On  the  other  side — the  side  of  Disbelief — 
the  endeavours  that  are  making  by  Theists  to  pack  and 
float  a  raft  a-head  of  Niagara  would  be  purely  matter 
of  ridicule,  if  the  consequences  to  these  schemers  were 
not  what  they  are. 

We  have  reached  our  present  position  after  leaving 
far  in  the  rear  the  ignorant  ribaldry  of  the  Voltaire 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  243 

epoch.  We  have  also  now  lately  left  behind  us  the 
erudite  whim  of  Strauss.  Strauss,  by  general  acknow- 
ledgment, has  failed  in  his  endeavour  to  solve  the  his- 
toric problem  of  the  origin  of  Christianity,  on  the 
assumption  that  it  is  false.  The  same  thing  stated  in 
other  words  is  this — that  the  historic  and  critical  argu- 
ment on  the  affirmative  side,  is  found  to  be  irresistible. 
This  is  the  consequence  which,  by  his  failure,  this  able 
writer  has  helped  us  to  come  to. 

If  there  be  any  means  of  holding  off  from  the  alter- 
native above  stated,  it  must  be  sought  for  among  those 
schemes  of  antichristian  Theism  which  recommend 
themselves  by  a  shining  exterior  of  refined  spiritualism, 
but  which,  rotund  as  they  may  seem  on  the  sentimental 
side,  will  not  bear  to  be  turned  over,  so  that  one  might 
look  into  them  on  the  logical  side.  There  are  orders 
in  the  animal  world  that  look  gay  and  beautiful — prone ; 
but  are  insufferable — supine. 

Such  schemes  cannot  avail  for  the  purpose  intended 
by  their  framers,  because,  as  may  easily  be  shown, 
recent  advancements  in  abstract  philosophy  have  made 
it  impossible  that  they  should  any  longer  fence  them- 
selves off,  as  toward  their  border  doctrine — Pantheism, 
or  the  worship  of  the  universe ;  and  one  need  not  take 
much  pains  to  prove  that  the  boundary  between  pan- 
theism and  atheism  is  like  the  margin  of  twilight  be- 
.  tween  day  and  night  in  the  tropics — an  ambiguity  that 
is  passed  in  ten  minutes. 

Sometimes  one  wonders  how  it  can  be  that  educated 
men  should  endure  the  humiliation  of  putting  forth, 
and  of  being  looked  to  as  the  apostles  of  religious 
schemes,  which   can  claim  no   fitter   designation  than 


244  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

this,  that  they  are  "  Impiety  scented  and  got  up  for 
the  ladies."  When  with  a  rude  breath  one  has  blown 
away  the  perfumery,  and  with  a  ruthless  hand  has 
torn  off  the  millinery,  what  remains  to  any  of  these 
recent  theisms  but  the  straw  and  shavings  which  the 
mass  of  men  will  never  be  persuaded  to  treat  as  any- 
thing better  than  rubbish  ?  It  will  be  of  no  avail  to  tell 
them  that  it  has  been  the  stuflBng  of  a  god. 

Truly  it  is  not  that  "Natural  Theology"  does  not 
now,  as  ever,  rest  upon  its  own  firm  foundations ;  or 
that,  in  ascertaining  these  foundations,  we  are  driven 
to  the  shift  of  reasoning  in  a  circle,  alternately  assum- 
ing our  premises  in  Natural  Theology,  for  establishing 
Christianity,  and  anon  using  Christianity  in  making 
good  our  Natural  Theology:  no  such  expedients  as 
these  are  called  for. 

But  the  case,  as  touching  us  at  the  present  moment, 
is  this.  During  a  lapse  of  years  which  need  not  be  pre- 
cisely dated,  as  well  the  abstract  as  the  concrete 
theistic  argument  has  insensibly  moved  itself  forward 
far  in  advance  of  the  position  which  some  of  us  remem- 
ber it  to  have  occupied.  That  line  of  argument  which 
was  accepted  as  sufficient  and  conclusive  in  Paley'a 
time,  and  which  embraced  ten  thousand  accumulated 
evidences  of  power,  intelligence,  and  benevolent  inten- 
tion, drawn  from  the  material  universe,  and  from  or- 
ganisms, vegetable  and  animal,  around  us,  is  hideed 
as  valid  now  as  heretofore,  and  as  unassailable.  Yet 
it  fails  to  meet  the  enlarged  intellectual  requirements  of 
these  times  ;  for  this  argument  does  not  even  furnish  us 
with  an  entire  Theology,  and  it  scarcely  opens  the 
path  towards  a  Theodicy;    much  less  does  it  lay  the 


THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  245 

foundation  for  a  Worship,  or  give  fixed  support  to 
an  Ethical  Doctrine.  It  wholly  fails  too  to  reveal  a 
Future  Life. 

On  all  sides,  therefore,  we  now  feel  and  know — 
and  it  is  strange  that  our  predecessors  were  so  little 
conscious  of  the  fact — that,  for  achieving  these  last- 
named  purposes  (and  unless  they  are  achieved  the  ar- 
gument is  barely  worth  what  it  costs)  we  must  go 
much  deeper,  and  must  look  wider  and  further :  our 
evidences,  to  be  conclusive  against  the  recent  Atheism, 
must  embrace  the  entire  circle  of  facts  presented  by 
the  world  of  Mind,  as  well  as  by  the  world  of  Matter ; 
and  we  must  bring  the  stress  of  our  argument  to  its 
bearing  upon  those  intellectual  and  moral  realities  of 
which  the  reasoners  of  past  times  seem  to  have  had  but 
a  glimmering  consciousness.  Our  Natural  Theology 
must,  as  to  its  hold  upon  our  serious  convictions,  come 
home  to  the  instincts  of  the  real  life,  that  is  to  say, 
the  life  of  the  soul. 

Now  when  we  have  done  this — and  we  are  driven  to 
do  it  by  the  irresistible  current  of  thought,  as  setting 
onward  at  this  time — and  when  in  the  process  of  doing 
it  we  have  recognised  as  true,  and  have  reinstated  as 
authentic,  the  whole  of  our  emotional  and  moral 
instincts,  its  impulses,  sympathies,  aspirations  ; — when 
we  have  assigned  a  place  to  our  irradicable  hopes,  and 
also  to  our  equally  irradicable  misgivings  and  alarms, 
and  have  thus  constructed  for  ourselves  a  Natural 
Theology  worth  the  labouring  for ; — when,  in  a  word, 
we  have  provided  ourselves  with  a  Theology,  a  Theo- 
pathy,  a  Theodicy,  a  Morality ;  when  we  find  our  feet 
resting  upon  a  basis  of  hope  as  men  immortal,  and  also 

21* 


240  THE   RESTORATION    OP    BELIEF. 

that  we  are  standins;  within  range  of  terrors,  as  men 
guilty ;  when  we  find  that  there  has  reared  itself 
around  us  an  edifice  within  which  men  may  be  invited 
to  congregate,  and  to  pay  homage  to  the  Creator, 
lluler,  and  Father,  we  then  feel  that  any  longer  to  re- 
pel Atheism  and  at  the  same  time  to  discard  Chris- 
tianity, is  impossible.  We  have  brought  ourselves  so 
near  touching  upon  the  awful  alternative  above  men- 
tioned, that  to  hold  off  from  it,  demands  an  effort  like 
that  of  one  who  is  clinging  by  the  hands  to  the  pedi- 
ment of  a  lofty  building. 

Up  to  a  certain  point,  Natural  Theology  runs  paral- 
lel with  Christianity.  Removing  the  forms  of  the  argu- 
ment, and  thinking  of  its  substance ;  or  substituting 
concrete  terms  for  abstract  terms,  it  is  a  nice  matter  to 
distinguish  the  one  body  of  belief  from  the  other. 
When  we  have  trod  the  Theistic  ground  as  far  as  it  may 
be  trod,  Christianity  is  ready  to  collapse  upon  us,  and 
to  challenge  us  to  surrender.  And  this  challenge  gets 
a  deeper  meaning  at  each  step  of  our  progress. 

The  Deists  of  the  time  gone  by,  seem  to  have  been 
little  conscious  of  difficulties  which  we  of  this  time  are 
groaning  under.  It  is  amazing  to  see  in  how  dry,  cold, 
and  mechanic  a  style  the  writers  of  the  past  era,  Chris- 
tian as  well  as  antichristian,  deal  with  those  grave  and 
painful  subjects  which  touch  the  modern  mind  to  the 
quick,  and  which  well-nigh  drive  sensitive  spirits  to  de- 
spair. A  trim,  academic,  syllogistic,  and  rotund  para- 
graph, indicating  no  genuine  sympathy  with  human 
suffering,  no  anguish  of  soul,  no  mortal  conflict,  not 
even  a  man-like  feeling  toward  our  fellow  men,  did  well 
enough  for  the  finish-off  of  an  argument  attempted  for 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  247 

"justifying  the  ways  of  God  toward  man."  The  "  tenth 
head  of  discourse  "  in  a  sermon  would  afford  ample 
space  wherein  to  propound  and  to  dissipate  all  reason- 
able doubts  on  questions  of  that  order. 

But  the  times  have  changed.  A  new  and  better 
feeling  has  come,  not  upon  the  few  only,  but  upon  very 
many,  if  not  the  mass  of  minds.  It  is  a  better  feeling 
(whatever  it  may  lead  to)  in  so  far  as  feeling  is  better 
than  apathy ;  and  as  there  might  be  a  question  whether 
it  would  not  be  better  for  a  man  to  hang  himself  in  de- 
spair, than  that  he  should  live  on  and  die  in  sottish  in- 
difference to  facts  which  would  make  hiin  wish  himself 
out  of  the  world,  if  he  were  but  conscious  of  them. 

At  this  moment  we  may  be  quite  sure  that  no  scheme 
of  religious  belief  will  be  able  to  hold  its  footing  abroad 
in  the  world,  or  beyond  the  walls  of  closets  and  saloons, 
which  does  not,  in  some  intelligible  and  coherent  man- 
ner, make  provision  for  securing  our  peace  of  mind  in 
regard  to  the  present  lot,  and  to  the  prospects  of  the 
human  family. 

It  is  on  this  arduous  ground  that  the  fate  of  the 
recent  Theisms,  one  and  all  of  them,  is  sealed.  They 
will  have  their  day,  and  then  become  as  the  chaff  of 
the  threshing-floor.  Atheism  offers  its  services  by 
showing  us  how  we  may  cease  to  feel,  or  to  trouble  our- 
selves concerning  anything  that  does  not  touch  our 
individual  animal  welfare  at  the  passing  moment.  But 
it  is  few  that  can  take  to  themselves  this  sort  of  com- 
fort, brutish  as  it  is. 

Our  Theistic  friends  cannot  do  it ;  and,  while  turning 
their  backs  upon  the  Gospel,  they  are  struggling  at 
desperate  odds  to  keep  at  bay  the  last  enemy  in  the 


248  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

direction  toward  which  they  are  looking.  They  are 
asking — "  Why  may  not  loe,  as  did  our  illustrious  pre- 
decessors, stand  our  ground,  and  enjoy  our  philosophic 
religion,  while  we  spurn  your  obsolete  Christianity?" 
"  You  cannot  do  it,  because  we  and  you,  and  all  of  us, 
have  moved  forward  on  to  new  ground.  You  see  that 
the  Tlieologians  of  this  time  do  not  utter,  nor  can  they 
bring  their  lips  to  frame  those  heartless  syllogisms  con- 
cerning the  lot  of  man  in  this  world  and  the  next,  which 
passed  glibly  over  the  tongues  of  their  predecessors. 
This  fact  might  give  you  a  very  significant  notice  that 
the  time  is  gone  forever,  when  the  icy  philosophy  of  a 
profligate  age  could  be  re-edited.  The  same  impossi- 
bility which  presses  upon  Christian  Theologians  at 
this  time,  must  take  effect  in  another  manner  upon 
yourselves,  and  forbid  your  wrapping  yourselves  in 
the  fool's  coat  that  fitted  the  broad  shoulders  of  your 
grandsires." 

The  Theists  of  this  time  might  perhaps  hold  their 
ground  if  their  near  neighbours  the  Atheists,  who  laugh 
at  them,  would  let  them  alone;  but  they  will  not  let 
them  alone.  They  have  found  a  sort  of  comfort  and  a 
present  ease  in  their  abyss,  which  the  Theist  will  never 
enjoy  while  he  struggles  to  keep  his  head  above  water, 
and  while  he  continues  to  look  up  to  the  sky. 

Abstract  questions  are  necessarily  the  same  in  sub- 
stance in  every  age ;  and  any  attempted  solution  of  the 
difficulties  that  attach  to  such  questions  can  vary  but 
little,  except  as  to  the  order  of  the  thoughts,  and  the 
tone  and  the  style  of  the  language  employed  by  an  in- 
dividual writer.  Inasmuch  therefore  as  those  standing 
perplexities  with  which  the  best  minds,  in  all  times,  have 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  249 

struggled,  to  little  or  no  purpose,  must  continue  to  press 
upon  every  scheme  of  Philosophic  Theism,  those  who, 
at  this  moment,  are  propounding  such  schemes  ought 
not  to  think  that  they  shall  be  more  successful  than 
their  predecessors.  But  unless  they  are  so,  unless,  in 
a  very  signal  manner,  they  are  more  successful,  then 
it  is  certain  that  the  human  mind  is  movino;  toward  a 
ground  where  these  ancient  difficulties  will  gain  a  ten- 
fold force.  This  should  be  well  understood :  but  the 
whole  subject  will  come  in  its  proper  place,  if  con- 
sidered further  on  in  the  course  of  this  argument.  I 
have  adverted  to  it  here,  simply  for  the  purpose  of 
showing  with  what  feeling  I  regard  those  who,  as  anti- 
christian  men,  I  must  speak  of  as  adversaries,  but  who 
are  not  yet  Atheists. 

In  regard  to  the  time  that  is  near  at  hand,  and  as  a 
preparation  for  that  one  last  convulsion  which  the  human 
mind  must  pass  through,  in  making  its  choice  between 
Christianity  and  Atheism,  it  is  not  merely  desirable, 
but  it  is  indispensable  to  the  good  issue  of  the  conflict, 
that  Antichristian  Theism  should  fiist  have  exhausted 
all  its  resources,  should  have  shot  its  best  arrow,  should 
have  refined  itself  to  the  utmost,  should  have  culmi- 
nated in  its  own  heavens — and,  especially,  that  it 
should  have  given  utterance,  in  opposition  to  Christi- 
anity, to  the  most  extreme  impieties  which  may  any 
way  be  made  to  consist  with  its  holding  a  position  at 
all  against  Atheism. 

It  may  be  thought  that  this  preliminary  work  has 
already  been  accomplished.  I  do  not  think  so.  I 
can  imagine  something  better  to  come  than  what  has 
hitherto  been  put  forth  by   our  hostile  friends — the 


« 
250  THE   RESTORATION   OF  BELIEF. 

antichristian  antiatheists.  As  yet,  what  A^e  have  had 
before  us  has  borne  the  manifest  indication  of  being 
the  product  either  of  minds  unstable,  impulsive,  and 
perturbed,  and  ill  content  with  their  own  holdings 
(which  they  cannot  hold  to)  or  of  such  as  are  flippant, 
self-seeking,  ambitious,  and  coldly  vain — minds  that  to 
win  a  clap,  would  not  scruple  to  sink  a  continent.  I 
can  hardly  imagine  that  Antichristian  Theism  has  in- 
deed completed  its  destined  work  while  it  is  repre- 
sented by  writers  who  show  no  such  seriousness  or 
honesty  of  purpose  as  would  lead  them  fairly  to  meet 
the  point  of  the  problem  as  to  the  origin  of  Christi- 
anity, and  to  scorn  transparent  sophisms  which  can 
serve  a  turn  only  among  the  uninformed  and  unthink- 
ing— the  consumers  of  "  railway  literature." 

Especially  we  want  to  see  what  can  be  done  in  mak- 
ing a  good  scheme  of  antichristian  antiatheism,  by 
men  who  have  that  modesty  and  self-respect  which 
inspires  respect  for  an  opponent.  On  this  ground  the 
entire  class  of  modern  infidel  writers  is  miserably  at 
fault.  Christianity,  keeping  its  hold,  as  it  does,  of 
the  profound  convictions  of  men  who  are  as  highly 
cultured  as  any  men,  and  who  are  as  robust  in  mind 
as  any,  and  as  fearlessly  honest  as  any,  it  is  an  ill 
symptom  when  a  set  of  writers  constantly  affects  an 
innocent  ignorance  of  any  such  fact,  and  are  always 
showing  off  their  condescension  toward  the  obtuse 
superstitions  that  are  prevalent  in  these  "middle 
ages."  ■,» 

I  am  apt  to  think  that  this  affection  must  nearly 
have  worn  itself  out  by  this  time,  and  that  men  who 
will  be  ashamed  of  it  are  yet  to  come  forward  on  the 


THE    RESTOllATION    OF    BELIEF.  251 

saiue  side — if  indeed  anything  further  remains  to  be 
advanced  on  that  side. 

Meantime  I  harbour  no  animosity  toward  the  writers, 
such  as  they  are,  Avith  whom  a  Christian  writer  has  to 
do.  I  am  heartily  glad,  for  myself,  that  I  am  not 
doing  their  work — although,  alas !  it  must  be  done  by 
somebody.  Toward  some  who  manifestly  have  known, 
as  I  have  known,  the  pains  of  saddened  meditation, 
my  feelings  are  those  of  profound  sympathy.  As  to 
the  flippant  and  the  ambitious,  it  is  easy  to  forget 
them.  As  to  one  or  two  who,  in  a  fit  of  moral 
hallucination,  have  uttered  revolting  blasphemies,  I 
leave  them  in  the  hands  of  Him  whom  they  revile, 
and  who  once  carried  charitable  hope  to  its  utmost 
boundary  when  He  said,  "  They  knv^w  not  what  they 
do." 


If  it  be  seriously-minded  and  sincere  men  tliat  are  to 
be  addressed,  then  it  may  be  demanded  of  them  that 
the  Gospel  should  be  listened  to  on  the  supposition 
that  it  is  true :  and  then,  let  it  be  proved  to  be  false, 
if  that  can  be  done. 

And  yet  though  I  append  this  last  condition,  I  must 
not  be  so  misunderstood  as  if  I  could  imasfine  this  to 
be  possible.  Any  such  assumption  I  hold  to  be  mon- 
strous ;  and  even  to  this  hypothetic  statement  we  can 
attach  no  meaning  so  long  as  we  respect  the  laws  of 
evidence,  and  the  principles  of  human  nature.  But  the 
Christian  argument  must  be  left  to  follow  in  that 
course  which  is  proper  to  the  exposition,  to  the  due 
conveyance,  and  to  the  demonstration  of  any  other,  and 
of  every  other  system  of  proof  in  which  premises  are 
assumed,  legitimate  conclusions  arrived  at,  difficulties 
cleared  up,  and  counter-suppositions  shown  to  be  un- 
tenable or  futile. 

Whoever  charges  himself  with  such  a  task  as  that 
of  conveying  to  the  intelligence  and  reason  of  others  a 
system  or  body  of  truth — of  whatever  kind — must  be 
understood  to  have  come  upon  his  ground  in  some  such 
manner  as  this :  that  is  to  say — he  professes  to  under- 
stand the  subject  of  which  he  is  to  treat ;  and  those  to 
"whom  he  speaks  must  believe  that  he  does  understand 
it,  and  that  he  is  familiar  with  all  parts  of  it,  including 
(252) 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  253 

its  most  difficult  problems.  They  must  listen  to  liim 
on  the  belief  that  what  he  affirms  to  be  true,  he  knows 
to  be  demonstrable  ;  and  they  must  believe  too  that  he 
is  prepared,  at  the  last,  to  meet  and  remove  all  reason- 
able objections. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  circle  of  philosophy,  of  criti- 
cism, of  history,  or  of  physical  science,  that  can  fairly 
be  set  forth  and  established,  unless,  formally  or  vir- 
tually, as  much  as  this  is  postulated  on  the  one  side, 
and  is  cheerfully  allowed  on  the  other. 

From  this  point  onward,  therefore,  dropping  a  peti- 
tionary tone,  and  abstaining  from  those  interlinear 
circumlocutions  which  spring  from  the  consciousness 
of  having  to  encounter  a  perpetual  gainsaying  and 
hostile  contradiction,  I  am  to  speak  in  the  undisturbed 
confidence  that  my  position  is  good ;  and  that  it  is 
impregnable. 

From  the  acts  and  discourses  of  Christ,  and  not 
least,  from  the  occult  meaning  of  several  of  his  para- 
bles, we  gather,  with  more  or  less  distinctness,  that 
his  mission,  as  toward  the  human  family,  had,  in  his 
own  view  of  it,  three  purposes,  each  of  which  is,  to  a 
great  extent,  irrespective  of  the  other  two,  and  which, 
although  they  are  not  in  fact  disjoined,  are  yet 
susceptible  of  interpretation,  when  taken  apart.  The 
supernatural  element  of  the  Christian  system — or  that 
body  of  miracles  which  is  recorded  by  the  four  Evan- 
gelists— has  a  meaning  which  is  peculiar  in  relation 
to  each  of  these  three  purposes,  considered  indepen- 
dently of  the  others ;  and  in  relation  to  each,  and  to 
the  entire  scheme  of  which  his  ministry  on  earth  was 


254        THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF. 

the  visible  act,  the  miracles  alleged  to  have  been 
wrought  by  him,  in  the  course  of  it,  are  neither  the 
beginning,  nor  the  end,  nor  the  substance  of  that 
scheme;  and  although  they  are  inseparable  from  it, 
they  are  adjunctive,  and,  in  a  sense,  are  incidental 
to  it. 

The  supernatural  element  of  this  system,  although 
adjunctive,  holds  its  position  within  it,  unchanged  by 
the  lapse  of  ages.  If  we  have  come  to  think  of  the 
miracles  of  the  evangelic  history — supposing  the  entire 
truth  of  the  record — as  events  which  long  ago  have 
come  to  their  end,  as  to  their  intention,  and  which  are 
now  receding  from  our  view,  and  are  fading  away  in 
the  haze  of  a  remote  antiquity ; — if  we  thus  think,  we 
misapprehend  (so  I  believe)  the  purport  of  the  Gospel, 
and  lose  sight  of  its  perennial  vitality.  This  I  shall  en- 
deavour to  show. 

The  three  purposes  embraced  in  the  mission  of 
Christ,  as  sent  of  God  to  bring  about  the  well-being  of 
the  human  family,  or  to  open  a  door  of  hope  to  all  its 
tribes,  are  these  three : — 

First  we  gather  from  Christ's  incidental  expressions, 
and  from  the  purport  of  some  of  his  parables,  this 
assumption — That  he  knew  himself  to  have  appeared 
in  the  world  to  bring  about,  by  means  of  principles 
which  be  originated,  or  which  he  authenticated,  a 
Secular  Reformation;  that  is  to  say,  a  purification, 
a  rectification,  and  an  ennobling  of  man's  life,  indivi- 
dually and  socially,  as  related  to  this  present  course  of 
things — even  that  life  individual  of  which  death  is  the 
termination,  and  that  life  social  which  matures  itself  in 


THE   KESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  255 

races — expires  with  tliem,  and  renews  itself  in  other 
and  remote  regions. 

Christ,  the  Reformer  and  Philanthropist,  was  to 
bring  about  this  purpose  of  his  misaion  just  so  far  as  it 
could,  in  its  nature,  be  brought  about,  by  means  that 
are  purely  suasive ;  or,  as  we  say,  by  moral  influences, 
apart  from  the  auxiliary  concomitance  of  visible  and 
political  institutions,  and  of  secular  power,  or  the 
setting  up  of  an  empire. 

As  the  SECOND  of  these  three  purposes  of  Christ's 
mission  and  ministry,  a  far  more  explicit  reference  is 
made  to  it  by  himself  than  to  either  the  first  or  to  the 
third.  In  truth  it  so  stands  out  in  his  discourses,  and 
it  so  presents  itself  in  his  apologues,  as  might  lead  us 
to  suppose  that  it  was  the  ruling  purpose  of  his  life,  and 
the  reason  of  his  suff"erings  and  death,  and  that  which, 
when  he  had  made  it  sure  by  his  resurrection,  became 
the  complement  of  joy  in  the  forethought  of  which  he 
had  endured  the  cross  and  despised  its  ignominy.  This, 
the  second  and  prominent  purpose  of  Christ's  mission, 
was  the  rescue  of  a  gathering — call  it,  if  you  will,  an 
election — from  out  of  the  million  millions  of  the  human 
family,  and  the  conferring  upon  these — whom  he  calls 
"his  OAvn" — the  life  divine,  the  life  immortal — even  a 
new  and  imperishable  existence,  of  which  his  own 
human  immortality  was  to  be  at  once  the  type  and  thq 
pledge. 

On  this  ground  I  am  not  writing  as  a  theologian, 
or  as  a  disputant  on  one  side  of  an  antiquated  contro- 
versy. 1  know  nothing  about  systems  of  divinity, 
nothing  about  confessions  of  faith,  nothing  about  articles 
of  religion. 


256    "    THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF. 

What  I  have  to  do  with,  and  the  only  things  that 
come  within  mj  field  of  vision,  are  these  : — on  the  one 
hand,  Christ's  own  professions — distinct  and  unamhig- 
uous  as  they  are ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  that  matter 
of  fact  which,  conspicuously,  has  attached  to,  and  has 
characterized,  the  course  of  events  in  all  ages  and 
countries  when  and  where  the  Gospel  has,  in  any  mea- 
sure, developed  its  energies. 

The  accomplishment  of  this  second  purpose,  as  of  the 
first,  was  to  involve  such  means  only  as  are  purely 
suasive — moral  and  spiritual,  that  is  to  say  as  distin- 
guished from  such  as  are  visible,  political,  and  mun- 
dane. But  then,  more  than  this,  it  implies  the  presence 
of  a  spiritual  energy,  going  beyond  the  suasive  force 
of  moral  principles,  or  of  audible  teaching,  and  which 
takes  effect  in  each  instance  in  a  manner  that  is  inscru- 
table, that  is  infallible,  and  that  is  analogous  to  those 
acts  of  the  Creative  will  which  at  the  first  filled  the 
universe  with  life,  and  which  is  now  and  always  doing 
the  same. 

As  to  the  THIRD  of  those  purposes  which  we  assume 
to  have  been  included  in  the  mission  of  Christ,  inas- 
much as  it  is  more  occult  than  the  first,  and  far  more 
so  than  the  second,  and  as  it  touches  the  circle  of 
human  duties  and  sentiments  only  in  an  indirect  man- 
ner, so  is  it  very  parsimoniously  alluded  to  in  his  dis- 
courses, and  if  anywhere  affirmed  didactically,  the  con- 
veyance is  made  in  symbolic  terms. 

Brevity  and  indistinctness,  in  this  instance,  are  what 
we  should  look  for,  as  proper  in  one  who  in  truth  is 
what  he  professes  himself  to  be.  The  enthusiast  or  pre- 
tender would  cither  have  made  no  such  challenge,  or 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF.     .    257 

if  lie  bad  made  it,  would  have  blazoned  it  in  byper- 
bolic  style. 

Gatbering  up  witb  care  from  Cbrist's  incidental  ut- 
terances, and  from  bis  apologues,  tbe  less  obvious  im- 
port of  certain  passages,  we  infer  tbat  be  professes 
bimself  to  bave  entered  upon  tbe  stage  of  tbe  world, 
on  tbe  part  of  tbe  Almigbty — its  rigbtful  Lord,  to 
deliver  the  buman  family  from  under  tbe  band  of  a 
lawless  Usurper — to  restore  trutb  and  order — to  over- 
throw tbe  tyranny,  and  to  bind  and  expel  tbe  Tyrant ; 
and  having  done  so — to  "lead  captivity  captive." 

Tbe  accomplishment  of  this  third  purpose  of  Cbrist's 
advent  involves  or  supposes  on  bis  part,  an  absolute 
lordship  over  all  human  spirits,  (willing  and  unwilling,) 
a  control  of  all  destinies — present  and  future;  to  wit — 
the  weal  and  tbe  woe  of  tbe  Living  and  of  tbe  Dead — 
for  Christ  is  Sovereign  and  Judge:  be  is  King  of 
Hades,  and  Master  also  of  every  spiritual  race,  as  well 
the  loyal  as  the  rebellious. 

Tbe  accomplishment  of  this  ulterior  purpose  of 
Christ's  mission,  and  tbe  achievement  of  this  conquest, 
is  to  be  brought  about — so  we  infer — in  such  a  manner, 
and  by  such  means  only,  as  shall  at  once  demonstrate, 
and  shall  signalize,  in  the  view  of  all,  tbe  intrinsic 
FORCE  of  Goodness,  Truth,  Rectitude,  when,  on  even 
ground,  these  immortal  energies  are  matched  against 
wickedness,  witb  its  falsities,  its  subterfuges,  its  ever- 
blundering  intelligence — its  own  sophisms — and  its 
own  malignant  devices.  This  superiority  of  Good  in 
its  conflict  witb  Evil  is  to  be  exhibited  under  con- 
ditions as  favourable  as  may  be  to  tbe  party  tbat  is  in 
the  end  to  be  discomfited. 

90-X- 


258  THE    RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

In  tlius  sketcliing  the  outline  of  the  argument  which 
I  intend  to  pursue  throughout  this  Tract,  I  profess  it 
to  be  my  intention  to  show  that  the  series  of  miracles 
recorded  by  the  Evangelists,  consummated  as  they 
were  by  the  miracle  of  Christ's  resurrection,  occupy 
a  place  of  perpetual  efficacy  in  relation,  separately,  to 
each  of  the  three  abovenamed  purposes  of  his  mission, 
as  Saviour  of  the  world,  in  a  secular  sense,  as  Re- 
deemer of  his  people,  and  as  Conqueror  in  the  world 
of  spirits. 

This  series  of  supernatural  events  is,  as  I  think, 
altogether  misunderstood  as  to  its  purport,  when  it  is 
imagined  to  have  been  an  interposition  requisite  for 
launching  a  New  Religion  in  the  world — and  for  giving 
it  an  initial  impulse ;  but  which,  now  that  the  Gospel 
has  got  its  footing  among  the  nations,  has  outlived  its 
purpose,  and  may,  not  only  safely  but  conveniently, 
and  with  advantage,  be  suffered  to  fall  out  of  notice 
and  to  be  forgotten. 

Any  such  supposition  as  this — entertained  as  it 
seems  to  be  by  some  who  profess  themselves  Chris- 
tians— is,  in  my  opinion,  an  error  which  is  the  fruit  of 
modes  of  thinking  that  are  shallow  and  nugatory. 


THE    FIRST    INTENTION    OP    CHRIST's    MISSION,    AS   AT- 
TESTED  BY   MIRACLES. 


We  have  said  that  Christ  has  entered  upon  the 
platform  of  the  human  system — even  of  this  secular 
course  of  things — embracing  the  well-being  of  men 
singly,  and  the  wellfare  and  progress  of  communities, 
with  the  purpose  of  effecting  thereupon  a  gradual,  but 
extensive  and  deep-working  regeneration.  As  Bene- 
factor of  those  whose  ordinary  term  of  existence  is 
three  score  years  and  ten,  and  as  the  Reformer  of 
communities  and  nations  which,  although  they  have 
longevity,  have  no  after  life.  He  gains  a  hearing  for 
principles  the  vitality  of  which  is  such  that  they  ger- 
minate in  the  most  rugged  soils,  and  spring  up  and 
bear  fruit  and  scatter  their  seeds  under  the  most  in- 
clement skies. 

These  principles,  contrary  as  they  are  to  the  selfish 
impulses  and  to  the  ingrain  desires  of  human  nature, 
are  sought  after  for  the  very  purpose  of  expelling,  and 
of  utterly  putting  them  out  of  the  way  of  interference 
with  the  better-loved  interests  of  the  day  and  hour. 
Yet  they  live ;  and  from  time  to  time  they  come  forth 
with  a  fresh  energy,  even  as  at  the  first :  nay,  with 
more  energy  than  at  the  first ;  because  in  each  succes- 
sive impact  upon  the  human  system,  they  fall  upon  a 

(259) 


2G0  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

mass  which  themselves  have  brought  into  a  condition 
favourable  to  the  impression  that  is  next  to  be  made 
upon  it. 

It  would  seem  to  be  a  matter  of  course,  at  this  point, 
to  specify  those  ethical  principles,  or  as  we  might  call 
them,  those  edicts  of  the  Christian  system,  which  are 
its  characteristics,  and  which,  so  far  as  they  take  effect 
upon  the  course  of  affairs  in  this  present  life,  do  so, 
by  universal  acknowledgment,  in  the  right  direction; 
that  is  to  say,  in  the  giving  force  to  every  dictate  of 
justice,  hnmanity,  self-denial,  temperance,  and  purity. 
But  it  is  superfluous  to  introduce  any  such  specifica- 
tions, for  we  are  saved  this  labour  by  those  who,  wish- 
ing to  disparage  Christianity,  are  wont  to  say  that,  as 
to  his  ethical  principles,  Jesus  of  Nazareth  has  ad- 
vanced nothing  but  what  had  been  already  said,  and 
in  a  better  manner,  by  the  great  writers  of  antiquity ; 
or  even  by  Jewish  teachers  and  Chinese  philosophers. 
If  this  be  so,  then,  on  all  hands,  it  is  agreed  that  the 
morality  of  the  Gospel  is  coincident  with  principles 
held  and  professed  by  the  leading  minds  of  the  most 
cultured  races.  This  is  enough  ;  or  if  anything  more 
were  affirmed  it  would  be  in  such  terms  as  these,  it 
would  be  said — "  We  do  not  need  Christianity  as  a 
system  of  morals;  for  we  all  know  and  feel  whatever 
is  good — whatever  is  simply  of  an  ethical  quality,  in 
the  Gospels  and  the  Epistles."  This  then  is  enough; 
and  it  hence  appears  that  Christ,  as  the  Reformer  of 
the  human  system  in  its  secular  aspect,  takes  up  and 
authenticates  those  well-understood  principles  which 
as  soon  as  they  are  heard  approve  themselves  to  the 
consciences  of  men,  and  which  the  sagos  of  all   tinu-s 


THE   RESTORATION"   OF   BELIEF.  261 

have  recognized  and  taught.     This  is  as  it  should   be, 
and  on  this  ground,  it   appears,   there  is  no   contro 
versy. 

That  the  teaching  of  an  ethical  Reformer  should  be 
consentaneous  with  the  better  feelings  and  convictions 
of  men,  as  embodied  in  the  sayings  and  teachings  of 
minds  of  the  highest  order,  is  what  we  should  look  for 
as  the  FIRST  requirement  in  one  who  comes  forward  to 
regenerate  a  world  that  has  fallen  into  disorder.^ 

The  SECOND  requirement  in  the  qualifications  of 
such  a  Reformer  is  this — that,  in  giving  expression 
to  these  dictates  of  universal  morality,  he  shall  use 
categorical  forms,  and  not  such  as  are  conditional  or 
logical.  His  style  is  this — "  I  say  unto  you" — and 
"this  is  my  commandment."  But  then  the  necessary 
adjunct  of  an  authoritative  tone,  such  as  this,  is — the 
affording  evidence  that  it  has  been  rightfully  assumed. 

It  has  been  usual,  on  the  part  of  Christian  advo- 
cates, to  say,  that  Christ  sets  a  bold  foot  upon  the 
ground  of  the  world,  as  if  proprietor  of  the  soil,  and 
that  he  issues  laws,  as  Master,  not  maxims  as  a  sage. 
In  no  case  does  he  ask  leave  to  be  listened  to,  or 
aim  to  conciliate  attention.  Love  is  in  his  demeanour 
and  in  every  act  of  his  life;  but  stern  law  is  on  his 
lips,  and  it  is  at  our  peril  that  we  turn  away  the  ear 
from  him  who  speaks  as  none  but  the  "  one  Lawgiver" 
may  speak. 

Christ,  as  founder  of  a  system  of  mundane  Ethics, 
revises  and  overrules  all  bygone  moralities,  issuing 
anew  whatever  is  of  unchangeable  obligation,  and  con- 
signing  to  non-observance  or  oblivion  whatever  luid 
a  temporary  force,  or  a  local  reason.     With  a  touch — 


262  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

with  a  word — a  word  full  of  far-reaching  inferences, 
he  rules  the  ages  to  come ;  and  he  so  sends  morality 
forward — he  so  launches  it  into  the  boundless  futurity 
of  the  human  system  on  earth,  as  that  it  shall  need 
no  redressing,  no  complementing,  no  retrenchment, 
even  in  the  most  distant  era. 

This  is  done,  not  by  systematic  codification,  but  by 
the  characteristic  practice  of  instancing  at  the  critical 
points,  and  wherever  an  ambiguity  is  to  be  excluded. 
Beauty  of  contour,  in  the  human  form,  is  secured  by 
the  ligaments  at  the  joints,  and  by  adhesions  of  the 
integuments  to  the  bony  structure  at  places.  It  is  so 
that,  in  Christ's  apothegms,  in  his  apologues,  and  in 
his  pointed  replies  to  sophistical  questions,  he  imparts 
a  divine  symmetry  and  majesty  to  his  body  of  laws. — 
Christ's  law  wears  the  grace  of  heaven,  though  it  be 
firmly  knit  together  as  law  must  be  if  it  is  to  hold  a 
place  in  a  world  such  as  this. 

Is  then  Christ's  morality  a  good  morality  as  related 
to  the  well-being  of  men  in  this  present  life  ?  You  find 
fault  with  it — raising  objections  on  this  or  that  ground. 
But  your  individual  judgment  can  have  little  signi- 
ficance nor  carry  much  weight  in  this  instance ;  for  an 
appeal  may  be  made  from  your  frigid  and  captious 
criticism  to  the  judgment  of  mankind.  It  is  true  that 
we  all  of  us  kick  at  Christ's  law,  and  resent  it,  in  our 
worse  moods  of  mind ;  but  we  all  give  in  to  it  and 
approve  it,  in  our  better  moods.  We  defend  ourselves 
against  its  application  to  ourselves,  and  we  look  about 
for  pleas  and  grounds  of  exception  whenever  it  stands 
upon  the  pathway  of  our  selfish  or  sensual  desires ; 
but  we  are   prompt   to  wish   that  we   could  arm  this 


THE   RESTORATION   OP   BELIEF.  263 

same  law  with  thunder  when  another's  selfishness  or 
his  passions  threaten  our  peace  or  property. 

In  the  course  of  those  convulsions  and  upheavings 
which  the  civilized  western  nations  have  passed  through, 
in  the  lapse  of  centuries,  Christ's  morality  has  still 
floated  uppermost,  and  has  held  its  position  in  the 
opinion  of  nations,  as  being  better  than  any  other 
morality  with  which  it  might  be  compared.  In  the 
social  condition  of  communities  those  things  which  rend 
the  heart  of  the  philanthropist,  and  which  perplex  the 
statesman,  are  those  in  which  Christ's  law  has  been  set 
at  naught,  and  in  which  if  it  were  applied  to  them, 
sufferings  would  be  mitigated — oppressions  would  wear 
themselves  out,  or  be  renounced  immediately ;  and  so 
the  problem  which  baffles  legislation  would  resolve 
itself  as  if  by  spontaneous  sublimation.  Christ's  law, 
taking  effect  as  the  principle  of  social  well-being, 
underlays  legislation  by  the  substitution  of  deeper 
motives  for  motives  that  are  shallow ;  and  it  overlays 
legislation  by  establishing  conventional  proprieties  of 
behaviour,  and  by  diffusing  a  refinement  and  a  sensi- 
tiveness, as  to  conduct,  which  have  the  effect  of  ban- 
ishing enactments  and  penalties  from  the  thoughts 
of  men,  in  the  ordinary  routine  of  domestic  and  public 
life.  Let  Christ's  law  come  into  its  position,  first  as 
a  fixed  principle,  and  then  as  a  suffused  influence,  and 
thenceforward  legislation  would  retire  within  its  limits 
as  a  needful  authority  in  the  defining  of  those  recipro- 
cative  interests  and  functions  which  are  indifferent,  as 
to  morality. 

We  are  so  used  to  think  of  Christianity  as  a  Re- 
ligion, related  to  the  invisible  and  future  life — which 


264  THE    RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF, 

doubtless  is  its  essential  character,  that  it  demands  an 
effort  of"  abstraction  to  think  of  it  merely  as  a  mun- 
dane, or  secular  religion,  sustaining  itself  indeed  upon 
beliefs  concerning  the  invisible  and  the  future,  yet 
achieving  an  end  which  does  not  in  fact  stretch  out 
beyond  the  present  life. 

If  Christianity  be  not  from  heaven  in  the  sense  in 
which  it  claims  to  have  come  thence,  then  its  author 
individually,  is  entitled  to  the  immeasurable  glory  of 
having  devised  and  put  upon  a  course  of  continuous 
vitality  a  mundane  religion  which,  for  power,  and 
for  the  intimate  hold  it  takes  upon  the  deepest  prin- 
ciples of  human  nature,  is,  when  set  beside  the  ancient 
theisms,  what  the  summer's  sun  is  as  compared  with 
an  arctic  aurora. 

Let  us  then  take  it  so  at  least  as  far  as  a  page 
onward  in  this  Tract,  that  Christianity  is  the  product 
of  a  human  mind — a  benevolent  mind — intending  to 
benefit  mankind,  and  projecting  the  means  of  driving 
off  the  vicious  polytheism  of  the  nations,  and  aiming 
to  substitute  an  efficient  belief  for  the  inefiicient  ab- 
stractions of  Eastern  and  Grecian  sages. 

This  intention  supposed,  then  the  author  of  Chris- 
tianity did  these  things  following : — First,  he  brought 
the  Infinite  and  Supreme  Being — the  Creator  and 
Ruler  of  the  world,  clearly  and  prominently  out  from 
the  haze  and  the  ambiguities  of  abstract  or  meta- 
physical speculation.  Theism  had  laboured  to  do  this 
■ — it  had  yeai'ned  to  do  it — it  had  laboured  and  had 
yearned  on  this  ground  to  give  some  contentment  to 
the  sorrowful  longings  of  the  human  breast,  and  to 
find  and  furnish  a  balm  for  its  woes ;  and  also  to  screen 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  265 

from  horrors  the  terrified  imagination  of  guilty  man. 
Very  slender  success  had  attended  any  of  these  earnest 
endeavours.  The  crowd  of  men  was  in  fact  sent  back 
from  the  walks  of  philosophy,  and  they  were  told  to 
procure  for  themselves  what  help  they  might,  at  the 
hands  of  priests,  and  in  frequenting  altars  and  in  be- 
sieging shrines. 

Christ,  and  we  now  think  of  him  as  the  author  of 
a  secular  religion,  effected  his  purpose  by  bringing 
men  into  immediate  contact  with  a  well-defined  con- 
ception of  a  Personal  Being,  infinite,  incomprehensible, 
and  yet  near  to  each  human  spirit — to  each  spirit  a 
Father,  "seeing  in  secret,"  and  accessible  by  prayer. 
It  was  this  vivid  revelation — call  it  now  a  merely 
human  conception,  which  by  its  splendour  put  out  the 
flickering  candle  of  philosophy,  and  which  by  its  force 
overthrew  altars,  and  sent  gods  and  goddesses  to 
seek  a  home  in  the  waste  places  of  the  earth ;  or,  if 
not  so,  they  were  left  to  shrink  back  into  their  own 
marbles ;  or  they  vanished  from  the  real  world,  and 
were  to  be  found  only  in  the  books  that  are  now  the 
portion  of  schoolboys. 

If  Christianity  be  a  religion  for  this  present  life, 
then  it  takes  possession  of  the  human  spirit  precisely 
at  those  points  of  contact  whereat  a  religion  first 
makes  its  entrance,  and  which  are  the  vei-y  last  hold- 
ing-places of  religious  feeling  with  men  who  are 
throwing  off  their  belief.  That  is  to  say — the  con- 
sciousness of  guilt — the  consciousness  of  weakness, 
and  the  experience  of  suffering,  impelling  us,  whether 
we  will  or  not,  to  believe  in  the  speciality  of  the  Pro- 
vidential  government   of  the  world,  and   to   trust  in, 

23 


266        THE  RESTORATION  OE  BELIEF. 

and  to  use  the  instrument  of  prayer,  as  a  real  and 
present  means  of  obtaining  deliverance — relief — solace. 
It  is  quite  true  that  there  is  a  class  of  sophistically 
constituted,  or  of  sophisticated  and  debauched  minds, 
that  do  succeed  in  reasoning  themselves  out  of  these 
instinctive  beliefs  : — there  are  men  who,  with  a  suicidal 
wantonness,  having  applied  logical  scissors  to  the 
nerves  of  the  moral  life,  do,  and  may,  with  truth,  de- 
clare that  they  are  conscious  of  no  impulse  leading 
them  to  look  to  the  supreme  power  or  mercy. 

So  it  may  be  with  the  exceptive  few ;  but  so  it  is 
not,  nor  ever  has  been,  with  human  nature,  taken  at 
large.  Man  and  woman,  in  this  their  season  of  hope 
and  fear,  of  changeful  weal  and  woe ; — man,  while  he 
carries  in  his  bosom  a  conscience,  and  while  he  is 
liable  to  a  thousand  ills,  must  have  a  religion. 

In  giving  men  a  religion,  Christ,  the  Saviour  of  the 
world,  does  not  recognize,  as  if  they  deserved  refuta- 
tion, any  of  those  sophisms  that  contradict  our  belief 
in  Providence,  and  that  would  silence  prayer,  as  if  it 
could  be  of  no  avail :  on  the  contrary,  it  gives  promi- 
nence, in  the  most  distinct  and  emphatic  manner,  to 
these  three  principles,  which  in  truth  might  be  regarded 
as  the  characteristics  of  his  system,  namely — That 
there  is  forgiveness  of  sins  with  God — That  the  welfare 
of  the  individual  man  is  watched  over  and  provided  for 
by  God  our  heavenly  Father,  even  in  relation  to  the 
smallest  of  its  elements ;  and  That  "  the  Father  of 
spirits"  hears  prayer,  and  yields  JumseJf  to  it,  and  that 
He  is  accessible  to  importunity.  These  are  the  con- 
stituents of  a  Belief  such  as  men  have  need  of  in  this 
present  life. 


THE   RESTORATION   OF    BELIEF.  267 

When,  as  now,  we  are  tliinking  of  Christianity  as 
an  earth-born  and  a  secular  religion,  then,  without  in- 
stituting inquiry  as  to  the  truth  of  its  doctrine  con- 
cerning a  future  life,  (which  inquiry  can  be  pertinent 
only  when  we  regard  it  as  heaven-descended,)  we  are 
bound  to  take  account  of  those  main  elements  of  the 
scheme — the  promise  and  the  threat  of  a  world  to 
come — even  a  retributive  immortality. 

The  way  in  which  this  promise  and  this  threat  are 
propounded,  and  then  the  mode  of  balancing  both  with 
the  instinctive  sense  of  justice,  in  the  human  mind,  de- 
mand to  be  noticed ;  for  these  adjustments  have  a  deep 
meaning,  and  have  been  too  little  regarded. 

The  future  retributive  life — the  alternative  of  abso- 
lute weal  or  woe,  and  each  of  these  carrying  with  it 
the  momentum  of  a  boundless  duration — how  have  these 
fearful  conceptions  been  employed  by  the  Author  of 
the  Christian  system  ? — an  awful  Eternity,  brought  to 
bear  upon  a  mundane  religious  institute  !  and  may  we 
not  use  this  word,  awful,  as  a  fit  adjunct  not  merely 
of  the  threat,  but  even  of  the  promise  ?  In  truth  can 
we  look  onwards  to  an  endless  existence  as  our  destiny, 
under  any  condition,  and  not  tremble  ? — or  can  this 
instinctive  fear  be  easily  exempted  from  feelings  of 
dismay  ? 

The  word  Eternity  must  here  be  accepted  in  its  po- 
pular sense ;  for  assuredly  any  terms  or  phrases  that 
are  used  in  conveying  to  mankind  at  large  a  secular 
religion,  must  be  understood  to  bear  none  other  than  a 
popular  or  ordinary  interpretation.  Whatever  those 
exceptions  may  be  to  which  the  more  mature  criti- 
cism of  a  future  time  may  give  support,  or  whatever 


268  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

the  qualifications  wliicli  a  future  biblical  induction  may 
introduce,  there  will  ever  stand  before  Christianized 
nations,  in  the  teaching  of  Christ,  an  absolute  alterna- 
tive, as  awaiting  those  of  the  human  family  that  have 
come  within  its  influence ;  that  is  to  say,  a  state  of 
permanent  well-being,  or  a  condition  of  irretrievable 
suifering  and  damage  in  the  future  life ;  and  this  as 
the  consequence  of  our  behaviour  in  this  life,  or  of  our 
moral  and  spiritual  condition  when  we  leave  it. 

Those  who  have  had  much  practical  concernment 
Avith  human  nature,  such  as  it  is,  and  who  understand 
the  instability  of  the  moral  principle  in  the  minds  of 
men  and  women,  such  as  they  are,  will  be  ready  to 
grant  that  no  presentment  of  the  future  life  which 
should  be  ambiguous,  or  which  should  be  otherwise  than 
absolute,  on  this  side,  or  on  that,  would  be  likely  to 
take  any  effect  at  all  upon  the  mass  of  minds.  The 
supposition  of  a  future  state  which  should  have  no 
boundary  between  a  condition  absolutely  good,  and  the 
contrary,  would  be  snatched  at  as  eligible  on  all  those 
perilous  occasions  when  the  imperious  commands  of  the 
sensuous  and  selfish  life  are  balancing  against  the  vague 
and  remote  good  of  the  life  future.  To  give  force  to 
motives  acting  under  this  disadvantage,  they  must  carry 
Avith  them  this  idea  oi  fixedness,  as  belonging  to  the 
future  retributive  state. 

But  now  it  is  certain  that  among  those  moral  intui- 
tions which  are  the  hopeful  distinction  of  human  na- 
ture, there  is  a  profound  sense  of  fitness,  order,  and 
justice,  which  demands  a  doctrine  of  quite  another 
sort,  as  requisite  for  securing  the  equilibrium  of  the 
mind;  and  especially  of  minds  the  most  sensitive  to- 


THE   RESTORATION    OB    BELIEF.  269 

■ward  whatever  is  good  and  true.  Accordingly  provi- 
sion is  made  in  the  Christian  scheme  for  meeting  and 
for  satisfying  this  moral  necessity. 

This  is  done  distinctly  and  boldly  in  the  teaching 
of  Christ,  when,  in  various  modes,  he  gives  expression 
to  the  doctrine  of  an  exactly  adjusted,  and  an  evenly 
meted  out  retribution — premium  and  penalty — such  as 
shall  fall  short  of  nothing  in  a  balance-keeping  recom- 
pense of  good  deeds,  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  punish- 
ment, or  an  exacting  of  pains,  on  the  other  ;  even  such 
a  retribution  as  shall  approve  itself  to  all  well-consti- 
tuted minds ; — only  that  on  this  side,  considerations 
of  ignorance  or  disadvantage  shall  be  admitted  to  miti- 
gate, or  to  overrule  the  reckoning. 

This  doctrine  stands  before  us,  on  the  one  hand, 
quite  as  sharply  defined  as  does  the  other  doctrine  on 
the  other  hand ;  and  it  is  this  last-named  principle  that 
meets  and  satisfies  those  instinctive  notions  of  even- 
handed  justice — of  strict  impartiality — of  fitness — 
order — truth,  which  (except  where  a  debauching  so- 
phistry has  paralysed  the  moral  nature)  take  efi"ect  in 
every  human  breast,  and  form  a  groundwork  upon 
which  conscience  lodges  itself,  and  on  which  it  rests  its 
leverage. 

But  now  do  we  not  discern  an  Incongruity  in  these 
two  beliefs  ?  does  not  the  one  doctrine  cut  across  the 
path  of  the  other,  and  seem  to  contradict,  or  to  dislodge 
it  ?  Logic-loving  theologians  have  always  seen,  or  have 
believed  that  they  saw,  this  contrariety ;  and  to  meet 
the  diflficulty  they  have  rejected,  or  evaded,  or  ignored 
the  one  or  the  other  of  these  prime  elements  of  the 
Christian  ethics.     Just  here  has  been  the  reef  upon 

23* 


270  THE   RESTORATION   OF    BELIEF. 

the  sharp  ridges  of  which  systems  of  Theology  have 
lodged  themselves  among  the  breakers.  Systems,  such 
as  might  show  themselves  with  credit  in  colleges,  and 
might  be  shaped  into  symmetry  by  scientific  manipula- 
tion, must  of  course  profess  to  be  able  to  steer  clear 
of  these  rocks,  on  either  hand.  Meantime  humble- 
minded,  diligent,  intelligent,  and  non-logical  readers 
of  Christ's  discourses  and  parables,  instead  of  being 
troubled  by  the  consciousness  of  any  such  incongruity 
— instead  of  finding  his  teaching  to  be  incoherent,  find 
in  it  the  rest  of  their  spirits — find  the  principle  of 
a  genuine  harmony,  or  moral  rest.  On  the  one  hand 
the  prospect  of  an  absolute  and  irreversible  alternative 
of  happiness  or  woe  takes  efiect,  with  unutterable  force, 
upon  the  religious  instincts,  giving  power  and  intensity 
to  the  religious  life.  On  the  other  hand,  the  counter 
doctrine,  which  is  not  less  distinctly  set  out  to  view, 
meets  the  requirements  of  a  healthy  reason,  and  of 
a  conscience  sensitive,  well  informed,  and  exercised 
among  and  upon  the  duties  and  trials  of  real  life. 

But  why  does  not  Christ,  the  Teacher,  himself  fill 
up  the  chasm  in  his  religious  system  ?  ^\  hy  does  he 
not  show  us  how  two  announcements,  so  dissimilar  in 
their  apparent  meaning,  may  be  brought  into  unison  ? 
Did  he  not  foresee  the  offence  which  the  logical  reason 
would  here  stumble  at  ?  As  human  teacher,  or  sage, 
he  would  no  doubt  have  foreseen  the  difiiculty,  and  in 
some  way  would  have  secured  his  scheme  against  ob- 
jection at  this  point.  But  he  does  not  do  this,  even 
by  a  word. 

If  we  should  be  willing  to  think  of  Christ  as  more 
than   a  sage,  then   we   may  readily  supply  ourselves 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF.        271 

with  an  explanation  of  the  omission,  as  thus.  We  may 
suppose,  either  that  the  mode  in  which  the  two  princi- 
ples shall  take  effect  in  the  future  life  may  be  such  as 
could  not  be  intelligibly  presented  to  the  human  mind 
in  its  present  stage  ; — or  that,  even  if  this  might  be 
done,  such  a  revelation  must  embrace  more  than  could 
now  be  set  before  us  for  our  good.  So  long  therefore 
as  Christ  the  Teacher  of  morals  is  listened  to  by  man- 
kind, the  two  doctrines,  each  carrying  all  the  force 
that  belongs  to  it  apart  from  the  other,  will  continue 
to  bear  upon  religious  minds,  and  will  preserve  such  in 
a  state  of  moral  acquiescence. 

We  have  spoken  of  Christ's  doctrine  of  a  future 
life,  and  are  now  thinking  of  its  threatening  aspect,  as 
a  constituent  of  a  religion  supposed  to  have  sprung 
from  a  human  mind,  and  to  have  been  contrived  for 
effecting  purposes  that  relate  to  this  present  life  only. 
Thus  regarded,  I  have  said,  the  terms  in  Avhich  this 
doctrine  is  conveyed  must  be  accepted  in  their  obvious 
and  popular  sense.  But  yet,  when  they  are  taken  in 
this  sense,  they  carry  a  meaning  from  the  pressure  of 
which  we  are  driven  to  seek  relief — if  it  may  be  had,  in 
criticism ; — or  if  not  so,  in  some  mitigating  hypothesis ; 
or  if  this  will  not  help  us,  then  we  are  tempted  to  re- 
ject Christianity  on  this  very  score.  There  is  however 
another  source  of  help  under  the  intensity  of  this 
weight,  which  it  is  easy  to  foresee  is  likely  to  unfold 
itself  in  the  course  of  an  improved  biblical  method ; 
and  it  is  of  this  sort. — 

— Already  biblical  criticism  has  reached  a  stage 
immeasurably  in  advance  of  the  position  which  it  oc- 
cupied only  a  few  years  ago ;  and  perhaps  we  ought 


272  THE   RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF. 

not  now  to  be  exacting  mucli  more  of  it  than  it  has 
actually  accomplished.  Yet  there  is  a  movement  for- 
ward which  is  not  merely  desirable,  nor  merely  pos- 
sible, but  almost  certain  to  come  about.  This  is  a 
thorough  and  absolute  emancipation  of  biblical  inter- 
pretation from  the  trammels  that  have  hitherto  been 
imposed  upon  it  by  our  polemical  theologies.  When 
once  this  liberation  has  been  effected,  the  utterances 
of  Sci'ipture  will  have  room  to  take  a  new  hold  of  the 
human  mind — accepted  as  true  in  their  simplest  mean- 
ing ;  and  then  a  genuine  counterpoising  of  moral  and 
spiritual  principles  will  freely  develope  itself  in  a  man- 
ner that  shall  give  rest  to  the  heart,  whether  or  not 
a  systematic  coherence  can  be  secured  for  scientific 
theology. 

Let  us  apply  this  supposition  to  the  case  before  us. 
Why  has  not  Christ's  teaching  concerning  an  impartial 
and  rigorous  future  retribution,  touching  all  men, 
hitherto  taken  the  prominent  place  which  of  right 
belongs  to  it  in  our  theologies  ?  Why  ?  because  we 
could  not  allow  it  to  come  into  any  such  position  with- 
out risk  to  the  counter-doctrine  of  an  absolute  alterna- 
tive of  good  or  evil ;  or  without  giving  an  advantage 
they  would  snatch  at,  to  our  antagonists,  on  the  right 
hand,  and  on  the  left. 

But  let  the  time  come  when  all  such  sinister  influ- 
ences shall  be  discarded  with  the  contempt  they 
deserve,  and  when  all  such  dotard  fears  shall  be  dis- 
pelled by  a  salutary  fear  lest  we  personally  be  found 
flattering  ourselves  among  fatal  delusions ;  and  then, 
this  potent  Christian  element,  working  its  way  into  the 
inert  core  of  our  now  relaxed  Christianism — touching 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  273 

and  wounding  our  fond  conceit  of  individual  impunity 
— breaking  in  upon  the  dreams  of  self-love,  and  dis- 
charging its  anodynes ;  and  then  a  healthful,  and  a 
health-giving  apprehension,  of  which  our  own  individual 
moral  condition,  and  not  the  fate  of  other  men,  will  be 
the  object,  dissipates,  we  know  not  how  or  why,  the 
morbid  moodiness  which  had  so  often  sent  us  on  a 
bootless  search  after  some  hitherto  unthought-of  and 
softened  etymology  of  the  atavioi  of  our  Greek  Testa- 
ment. 

Besides,  this  same  style  of  faithful  dealing  with  our- 
selves— an  alarmed  conscience  holding  a  candle  as 
often  as  we  read  our  Bibles — will  bring  before  us  in 
distinct  outline,  the  truth  that,  in  its  application  to  the 
millions  around  us — even  to  the  unprivileged  and  the 
untaught  millions  of  our  brethren,  a  fearless  interpre- 
tation of  Christ's  doctrine  concerning  the  impartial 
future  retribution,  avails  immensely  more  in  the  clear- 
ing up  of  the  diflSculties  that  have  saddened  our  medi- 
tative hours,  than  does,  or  than  can,  any  imaginable 
novelty  of  interpretation,  even  the  most  lax  that  should 
be  put  upon  an  obnoxious  phrase  in  the  Gospels. 

It  has  been  usual  to  think  of  Christ's  announcements 
of  future  punishment  in  relation  to  their  direct  bearing 
upon  morals ;  and  the  question  is  asked  how  far  this 
may  have  operated  as  a  restraint  upon  the  passions  of 
men.  On  this  ground  appeals  have  been  made  to  facts, 
in  support  of  opposite  conclusions.  With  this  much- 
worn  question  I  have  nothing  now  to  do,  nor  am  in- 
clined to  advance  an  uncalled-for  opinion  upon  it.  But 
there  is  a  permanent  and  a  very  extensive  product  of 
those  awful  declarations,  which,  though  it  be  not  obvi- 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  274 

ons,  and  though  it  has  seldom  been  adverted  to,  is  of 
unquestionable  reality,  and  may  be  traced  in  its  opera- 
tion upon  every  page  of  religious  history.  As  often  as 
we  are  comparing  the  ancient  mind  with  the  modern 
mind,  and  notice  the  characteristics  of  the  two  very 
dissimilar  moods  of  the  same  human  nature,  this  influ- 
ence is  recognizable. 

To  this  subject  I  have  already  adverted  more  than 
once  in  these  Tracts,  and  shall  now  only  bring  it  to  its 
place  in  relation  to  my  immediate  purpose. 

The  ancient  civilization,  with  all  its  great  and  shin- 
ing qualities — qualities  which  have  secured  for  it  an  im- 
mortal glory,  though  not  a  perpetuity  in  fact,  wanted 
that  which  places  our  modern  civilization  upon  a  far 
more  solid  basis,  and  which  is  the  reason  at  once  of  its 
perpetuity  and  of  its  progression. 

In  the  social  system  of  cultured  antiquity  there  was 
wanting  an  element  of  some  kind — nor  did  it  appear 
whence  it  could  be  drawn — which  should  confer  upon 
the  individual  man,  and  upon  woman  also,  a  ground  of 
self-esteem  that  should  be  exempt  from  arrogance : — 
there  was  needed  too  in  every  man,  a  reason  for  re- 
specting and  promoting  the  welfare  of  other  men  which 
should  stand  good  irrespectively  of  any  estimate  of 
their  individual  merits :  there  was  wanting  some  princi- 
ple, or  impulse  of  personal  courage  and  fortitude,  which 
should  be  available  for  the  feeble  as  well  as  for  the 
strong,  and  which  should  arm  the  individual  man,  with- 
out making  him  pugnacious,  and  make  him  unconquer- 
able without  making  him  sullen : — there  was  wanting 
in  the  ancient  mind,  a  motive  so  solid  as  that  the 
loftiest  virtues  might  rear  themselves  upon  it  as  a  basis, 


THE   RESTORATION   OF    BELIEF.  275 

and  yet  show  no  contempt  of  others  :  there  was  want- 
ing a  ground  of  humility  exempt  from  abjectness,  and 
of  grandeur  of  soul  exempt  from  pride. 

Christ,  the  Saviour  of  men  as  to  this  present  life,  has 
supplied  this  want  in  an  effective  manner ; — for  he  has 
planted  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  trust  him  as  a 
teacher  sent  from  God,  a  hope  and  a  fear  which  sur- 
mounts, and  which  out-measures  every  other  hope,  and 
which  expels  every  other  fear; — a  fear  too  which  gives 
an  irresistible  prompting  to  courage,  and  which  sus- 
tains even  the  pusillanimous  in  a  course  of  behaviour 
which  the  noblest  spirits,  without  it,  can  barely  emulate. 

That  dozen  of  men,  ignobly  boriJ»as  they  were,  which 
followed  Jesus  in  his  circuits  through  Galilee  and 
Judea,  fondly  dreamed  of  palaces  and  princedoms 
which  soon  were  to  be  their  own,  when  in  truth,  they 
were  about  to  be  sent  forth  upon  a  course  of  suffering 
intensely  severe.  It  was  needful  to  arm  them  for  this 
unlooked  conflict,  and  this  requisite  preparation,  as  it 
included  powerful  motives  of  the  happiest  complexion, 
so  did  it  embrace  a  dread  so  deep  that  it  should  be 
proof  against  the  extremest  wrench  of  bodily  anguish. 
On  the  one  hand,  this  Teacher  of  men  had  said — "Fear 
not,  little  flock,  for  it  is  your  Father's  good  pleasure 
to  give  you  the  kingdom:" — but  on  the  other  hand  he 
had  said,  even  to  these  his  "friends" — "Fear  not  them 
which  can  kill  the  body,  and  after  that  have  nothing 
more  that  they  can  do.  But  I  will  forewarn  you  whom 
ye  shall  fear; — fear  him  which  hath  power,  after  he 
hath  killed,  to  cast  into  Gehenna ;  yea,  I  say  unto  you, 
fear  him."     And  what  was  this  Gehenna? — it  was  the 


276  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

place  where,  according  to  the  same   Teacher,  "their 
fire  is  not  quenched,  and  where  their  worm  dieth  not." 

Now  we  of  this  age  may  expound  as  we  think  fit 
these  appalling  words;  or  may  extenuate  these  phrases; 
■ — or  if  we  please,  let  us  cast  away  the  whole  doctrine 
as  intolerable  and  incredible. — Let  us  do  so ;  but  it  is 
a  matter  of  history,  out  of  question,  that  the  apostolic 
Church,  and  the  Church  of  later  times,  took  it, 
word  for  word,  in  the  whole  of  its  apparent  value.  It 
is  true  that  several  attempts  were  made  to  substantiate 
a  mitigated  sense ;  but  it  is  certain  that  the  language 
of  Christ,  in  regard  to  the  future  life,  was  constantly 
on  the  lips  of  mart^^s,  throughout  the  suffering  cen- 
turies. Often  and  often  was  it  heard  issuing  from  out 
of  the  midst  of  the  fire,  and  was  lisped  by  the  quivering 
lips  of  women  and  children  while  writhing  on  the  rack. 

These  were  the  actual  fruits  of  Christ's  stern  doctrine 
of  the  "wrath  to  come,"  and  by  such  means  as  these 
was  it  that  the  world  was  at  length  cleansed  of  the  pest 
of  licentious  gods  and  goddesses.  But  there  were  other 
and  later  fruits  of  the  same  belief  which  have  been  not 
of  less  moment,  albeit  less  direct,  and  less  conspicuous. 

An  unclouded  belief  concerning  the  future  life,  with 
its  awful  alternative  of  endless  good  or  ill — a  belief  of 
inheriting  a  bright  immortality  by  favour,  not  by  merit 
— a  belief  of  individual  relationship  to  the  infinite  and 
Eternal  Being — a  commingled  or  aggregate  persuasion 
)f  this  sort  solves  the  problem  that  has  been  stated 
ibove ;  for  it  supplies  to  the  individual  man — and 
voman  too — and  child — it  supplies  a  ground  of  self- 
isteem  that  is  exempt  from  arrogance ; — it  furnishes  a 
jonstant  reason   for  respecting  the  welfare  of  others, 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF.        277 

standing  good  irrespectively  of  their  individual  merit ; 
it  conveys  to  the  heart  an  impulse  of  personal  courage, 
and  of  fortitude,  available  by  the  feeble  as  well  as  by 
the  strong  :  it  arms  the  individual  man  without  making 
him  pugnacious ; — it  renders  him  proof  against  des- 
potism, but  it  does  not  make  him  sullen.  This  aggre- 
gate belief — the  fruit  of  Christ's  teaching — yields  to 
the  mind  and  to  the  heart,  a  basis  upon  which  the 
loftiest  virtues  may  rear  themselves,  without  showing 
contempt  toward  others  ;  and  it  supplies  a  ground  of 
humility  free  from  abjectness,  and  of  greatness  exempt 
from  pride. 

The  ancient  civilization,  compared  with  the  modern, 
that  is  to  say,  the  civilization  of  the  people  of  Western 
Europe,  offers  to  the  eye  the  prominent  difference  that 
results  from  the  position  of  woman — her  personal 
purity,  and  dignity,  and  her  consequent  influence  in 
society,  generally,  and  in  the  domestic  circle,  specially. 
Now  it  ought  not  to  be  afiirmed — for  such  an  allega- 
tion could  not  be  put  beyond  question  by  an  appeal  to 
facts,  that  this  vast  difference,  with  its  incalculable 
consequences,  favourable  as  they  are  to  the  stability 
of  modern  nations,  is  wliolhj  attributable  to  Christianity, 
either  in  the  way  of  explict  injunction,  or  of  moral 
influence.  The  social  position  of  woman — her  personal 
qualities  and  virtues — her  place  and  her  power,  as  wife 
and  as  mother,  are  the  characteristics  of  certain  races  ; 
and  being  so,  they  mark  those  races  as  destined  for 
progress,  and  as  susceptible  of  refinement ;  while  fami- 
lies or  nations  that  want  the  same  inborn  distinction, 
are  doomed   to  be    stationary    through    thousands  of 

24 


278  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

years  ;  or  tbcy  are  now  melting  away  from  the  coun- 
tries they  once  filled. 

But  in  relation  to  the  place  which  woman  occupies, 
and  to  her  qualifications  for  filling  it,  these  two  afiirma- 
tions  are  safe  from  contradiction,  namely,  first  this, 
that,  as  often  as  Christianity  is  ofi'ered  to  the  accept- 
ance of  nations  which  do  not  possess  this  mark  of  no- 
bility, as  there  can  be  no  compromise  on  this  ground, 
such  races  must  either  acquire,  with  the  new  religion, 
this  redeeming  instinct;  or  not  acquiring  it,  Chris- 
tianity retires  from  their  borders,  and  when  it  does  so, 
it  consigns  them  to  hopeless  barbarism,  or  to  gradual 
disappearance  from  among  nations. 

But  secondly,  this  may  be  afiirmed — that  in  any 
community,  (assumed  to  be  noble  in  this  special  sense,) 
in  which  the  Gospel  takes  a  firm  hold  of  many  minds, 
and  in  which  it  is  publicly  recognized  as  a  final  au- 
thority, it  makes  provision  for  securing  the  rights,  the 
influence,  and  the  personal  dignity  of  woman — not  in- 
deed by  legislating  upon  polygamy,  adultery,  con- 
cubinage ;  but  in  a  far  more  eff"ective  manner — in  truth 
in  the  only  mode  that  could  be  eff'ective — namely,  by 
imposing  the  restraints  of  personal  virtue,  purity,  and 
continence  upon  man.  Where  men  are  virtuous,  women 
will  be  pure,  and  where  women  are  pure  they  will  hold 
their  place  without  the  help  of  laws. 

Now  we  need  look  no  further  than  this  in  search  of 
what  should  be  regarded  as  the  primary  conditions  of 
national  well-being,  and  accepting  the  tAvo  above  speci- 
fied as  sufficient,  might  in  the  manner  following  put 
our  theorem  into  form.  Given,  a  community  within 
which  many  may  always  be  found  whose  individuality 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  279 

is  at  once  marked  and  secured  by  their  possession  of 
profound  religious  convictions,  and  corresponding  moral 
sentiments,  which  they  will  adhere  to  and  will  openly 
profess,  even  at  the  peril  or  cost  of  life  itself :  thus 
then  we  have  a  guarantee  for  religious  liberty  within 
that  community,  and  through  that,  of  civil  and  politi- 
cal liberty ;  and  by  means  of  these  together,  there 
takes  place  the  highest  possible  developement  of  human 
nature,  individually  and  socially.  Given  also  a  com- 
munity within  which  certain  evangelic  dicta,  such  for 
instance  as  that  comprehensive  rule  issued  by  Christ, 
as  recorded  by  Matthew,  (v.  28,)  or  that  one  by  his 
minister,  (Hebrews  xiii.  4,)  are  held  to  carry  with 
them  the  awful  sanction  of  Divine  Law ;  and  then,  as 
the  sure  consequence,  we  have  a  social  system  which 
is  sound  at  the  core  ;  not  false  and  putrescent :  we 
have  a  system  within  which  the  brightest  and  the  best 
felicity  which  earth  can  yield  to  man  shall  be  enjoyed 
in  thousands  of  homes : — ^we  have  a  social  system  within 
which,  from  thousands  of  sources — obscure  and  illus- 
trious, from  cottages  and  from  mansions,  from  attics 
and  lodgings,  from  shop  parlours,  aUd  from  halls  of 
splendour,  there  shall  spring  forth,  and  spread  them- 
selves abroad  perpetually,  all  the  stern  virtues,  and  all 
the  soft,  warm,  and  heavenlike  affections  ;  all  the  smil- 
ing bright-eyed  graces  of  innocent  youth,  and  all  the 
tearful  and  yearning  sympathies  of  matron  life ;  in  a 
word,  all  those  bosom-heaving  joys,  and  all  those  soul- 
healing  griefs  which  render  earth  such,  that  men, 
while  in  the  fruition  of  so  much  pure  good,  feel  and 
know  that  there  must  be  a  Heaven  to  come,  where 
earth's  blossoms  shall  ripen  into  undecaying  fruits. 


280  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

But  now  as  to  all  tliis  Christ-given  earthly  good, 
on  what  terms  is  it  to  be  had,  or  in  compliance  with 
what  conditions  is  it  to  be  made  sure  to  any  people  ? 

Nothing  more  simple  or  certain  than  the  reply: — 
-the  one  condition  is  this,  that  Christ,  the  "author 
and  finisher"  of  a  faith  carrying  with  it  these  prin- 
ciples of  earthly  well-being,  shall  be  thought  of  and 
listened  to  as  God's  authenticated  minister,  so  as  that 
we  are  sure  that  not  one  of  his  words  shall  fall  to  the 
ground,  or  fail  to  take  effect  upon  ourselves,  here  or 
hereafter. 

In  other  words,  there  must  be  available,  in  a  form 
adapted  to  the  reasonable  requirements  of  an  instructed 
people — evidence  sufficient,  on  the  ground  of  which  the 
convictions  of  such  a  community  may  securely  rest. 
Belief  is  the  one  condition  which  we  need :  grant  it ; 
and  the  consequences  above-named  follow. 

If  Christ  be  trusted  in — if  Christ  be  feared  as  he 
who  shall  come  to  be  our  judge,  and  if  he  be  loved  as 
our  Deliverer,  he  becomes  at  once  "  the  Saviour  of  all 
men,"  and  is  then  the  Giver,  in  this  present  life,  of 
Liberty,  Love,  Virtue,  and  whatever  of  peace  and 
felicity  this  life  may  be  made  to  embrace  in  its  seventy 
years. 

Now  I  come  round  to  my  immediate  purpose  in  this 
section,  which  is  to  show  the  bearing  of  the  super- 
natural element  of  the  Christian  system  upon  its  per- 
petual influence  in  the  world,  as  the  source,  and  the 
impelling  reason  of  secular  good  and  of  earthly  felicity, 
or  of  solace  and  mitigation,  as  the  case  may  be,  to  the 
human  family.  Remove  the  supernatural  from  the 
Gospels,  or,  in  other  words,  reduce  the  evangelic  his- 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  281 

tories,  by  aid 'of  some  unintelligible  hypothesis  (Ger- 
man-born) to  the  level  of  an  inane  jumble  of  credulity, 
extravagance,  and  myth-power,  (whatever  this  may  be,) 
and  then  Christianity  will  go  to  its  place,  as  to  any 
efifective  value,  in  relation  to  humanizing  and  benevo- 
lent influences  and  enterprizes — a  place,  say,  a  few  de- 
grees above  the  level  of  some  passages  in  Epictetus 
and  M.  Aurelius. 

Whatever  may  be  the  present  estimated  value  of 
the  best  pages  of  classical  antiquity,  considered  as  a 
moral  force,  now  in  operation  for  the  good  of  man- 
kind— then  the  residual  value  of  the  Gospels  and 
Epistles — after  the  miracles  have  been  driven  off  in 
the  furnace  of  "  historic  criticism" — will  be  (may  you 
not  grant  it  ?)  about  twice  as  much !  In  relation  to 
the  support  of  vegetable  and  animal  life,  let  us  ask, 
what  would  be  the  value  of  twice  moonlight  ? 

The  Gospel  is  a  force  in  the  world,  it  is  a  force 
available  for  the  good  of  man,  not  because  it  is  Wis- 
dom, but  because  it  is  Power.  Whence  comes  its 
power  ?  Tell  me  whence  it  will  come  after  you  have 
persuaded  the  world  that,  henceforward,  in  the  book 
of  history,  it  must  be  catalogued  along  with  Frauds  ? 

It  is  a  customary  observation,  or  truism,  to  say  that 
the  power  of  enjoyment  and  the  power  of  suffering — ■ 
necessarily  correlatives — are  directly  as  the  quantity 
of  the  intellectual  and  moral  faculty,  and  in  proportion 
to  the  development  of  both.  There  may  therefore 
always  be  room  for  the  question  how  far,  in  a  world 
such  as  this,  abounding  as  it  does  in  sources  of  suffer- 
ing, an  increase  of  intellectual  and  moral  faculty,  and 
the  developement  of  them,  are  truly  to  be  desired.     A 

2-4* 


282        THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF. 

question  such  as  this  we  leave  where  it  stands.  But 
this  is  certain,  that,  in  the  mechanism  of  human  nature 
a  remedial  provision  is  made  for  the  simultaneous  and 
proportionate  enlargement  of  those  helpful  sympathies 
which  bind  us  together,  in  weal  or  woe,  and  which 
widen  infinitely  the  interval  between  the  cultured  and 
morally  developed  man,  and  the  savage.  Am  I,  and 
are  those  around  me,  capable  of  enjoying  and  of  suf- 
fering a  thousand  times  more  than  is  my  brother,  the 
troglodite  ? — yes,  but  then  I  may  reckon  upon  receiv- 
ing all  sorts  of  aids  and  solaces — substantial  help  and 
tearful  love,  in  my  hour  of  suffering ;  while  he  is  left 
in  his  den  to  be  eaten  alive  by  wild  dogs  or  vultures. 

Nevertheless,  while  it  is  true  that  the  benevolent 
affections,  and  the  natural  impulses  of  sympathy  do, 
in  a  general  way,  keep  pace  with  the  expansion  of  the 
intellectual  and  moral  faculties,  it  is  also  true  that  the 
force  actually  available  in  the  world,  at  any  time,  for 
the  relief  of  want,  and  for  the  assuagement  of  pain  and 
woe,  needs  a  constant  momentum  to  be  supplied  to  it 
from  some  energy  that  is  foreign  to  itself.  It  is  the 
presence  of  this  constant  force,  drawn  from  a  definite 
religious  belief,  which  makes  the  diff"erence  between 
the  vague  philanthropy  of  the  best  times  of  ancient 
refinement,  and  the  effective  benevolence  of  Christian- 
ized modern  communities.  But  the  momentum  sup- 
plied by  the  Gospel  is  a  force  which  disappears — which 
is  utterly  gone,  gone  for  ever,  when  Belief  in  its  au- 
thority, as  attested  by  miracles,  is  destroyed. 

This  assertion  might  seem  to  need  no  proving,  but 
it  may  admit  of  something  to  be  said  in  the  way  of 
illustration. 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  283 

Let  it  be  affirmed,  on  your  side,  that  a  miracle  is 
abstractedly  impossible,  and  that  no  such  event  has 
ever  occurred  in  the  world's  history ;  or  that  if  it  had 
occurred,  it  could  not  have  been  so  reported  to  us  as 
should  now  command  our  assent.  Furthermore,  let  it 
be  said  that  the  mass  of  mankind  have  in  all  ages  ad- 
mitted such  reports  greedily,  or  in  the  exercise  of 
little  discrimination.  No  such  allegations,  or  the  like 
to  them,  can  affect  my  present  argument.  The  evan- 
gelic miracles  have  in  fact  been  accepted  as  true,  and 
they  are  so  accepted  at  this  present  time ;  and  the 
evidence  in  support  of  them  is  of  such  force  that  it 
commands  the  assent  of  educated  men,  who  at  the 
same  time  reject  with  contempt  the  entire  mass  of  that 
spurious  stuff  which  crams  Church  histories.  This 
being  the  fact,  the  supernatural  element  of  Christianity 
is  an  extant  efficient  cause,  working  itself  out  now  in 
the  movements  of  every  Christianized  community. 
Christian  benevolence,  expressing  itself  in  a  thousand 
forms  of  appliance,  as  related  to  the  ten  thousand 
phases  of  human  suffering  and  degradation,  is  not  a 
vapid  sentiment  with  a  tear  on  each  cheek ;  nor  is  it 
an  ambulatory  wisdom,  nor  is  it  a  schirrous  humanity, 
grown  upon  political  economy ;  but  it  is  a  calculable 
resource,  occupying  a  principal  place  in  the  estimate 
of  a  people's  means  of  regeneration  and  progress. 
Belief  in  the  supernatural  lifts  this  estimate :  disbe- 
lief sinks  it  below  zero.  Belief  is  the  spring  or  rea- 
son of  practical  benevolence  in  a  country :  Disbelief 
is  the  azote  of  the  moral  world. 

Whether  it  be  gladly  and  cordially,  or  grudgingly 
and  formally,  men  on  all  hands  do  yield  themselves, 


284  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

their  personal  services,  or  their  purses,  or  both,  to  the 
assessments  of  authoritative  Christian  benevolcyice.  To 
some  extent  the  purest  and  most  heavenlike  impulses, 
and  to  a  great  extent  conventional  practices,  feed  Chris- 
tian charity,  public  and  private,  and  keep  it  a-going; 
but  both  alike  take  their  rise  from  a  belief  which  is  held 
to  carry  with  it  the  weight  of  Divine  law— law  that 
shall  be  valid  in  a  future  life. 

Instead  of  thinking  of  so  mixed  and  ambiguous  a 
mass  as  the  national  mind,  let  us  now  fix  our  atten- 
tion upon  the  restricted  field  of  a  Church-going  com- 
munity, in  a  country  like  England.  The  minds  that 
fill  this  narrower  field  may  be  distributed  into  three 
classes,  as  thus :  there  is,  first,  the  large  class  of  the 
inert,  comprehending  the  thousands,  young  and  old, 
who  yield  themselves,  in  various  degrees  of  ductility 
or  malleability,  to  the  forces  that  are  brought  to  bear 
upon  them.  The  second  class  includes  the  smaller 
number  of  the  repugnant,  or  recalcitrant,  who  are  held 
within  the  Christian-charity  pale  by  nothing  better 
than  secondary  or  sinister  motives.  These  are  those 
who  are  restrained  from  flagitious  evil,  and  who  are 
compelled  to  take  a  share  in  what  is  good,  by  motives 
that  are  ready  to  snap  at  any  instant.  Then  there 
is  the  third  class — the  true,  the  loving,  the  heart- 
whole,  the  believing; — those  whose  presence  is  the 
life-blood  of  the  body  ecclesiastical,  spiritual  and  moral. 

Now  with  these  three  clearly  distinguishable  classes 
in  view,  as  filling  churches — side  by  side  once  a-week 
in  pews — let  me  imagine  that  we  had  the  power  to  try 
the  two  experiments  following  : — 

First,  let  it  be  that,  from  some  hitherto  unsuspected 


THE   RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  285 

source,  there  has  come  up  evidence,  palpably  contra- 
dictory of  the  Gospel  history,  as  to  its  supernatural 
element.  A  flaw  in  the  evidence  has  been  brought 
forward — a  flaw  of  such  a  kind  as  leaves  no  place  for 
explanation.  This  discovery  so  acts  upon  the  Church- 
going  class  as  that  the  religious  persuasion  of  the  body 
suddenly  collapses.  Belief  is  gone  ;  that  is  to  say,  all 
feeling  toward  Christianity  as  a  revelation  from  God, 
miraculously  attested,  and  having  a  valid  claim  to  our 
reverential  regard,  has  ceased.  We  have  still  in  our 
hands  the  very  same  Text,  with  all  its  excellent  maxims, 
and  its  elevating  sentiments,  and  its  eloquent  passages. 
But  the  parchment  no  longer  entitles  us  to  an  estate — • 
the  parchment  no  longer  alarms  us  with  the  threat  of 
future  pains. 

The  Church  bell  goes  the  next  Sunday  morning 
after  this  fatal  discovery  has  been  noised  abroad,  and, 
scarcely  knowing  why,  the  congregation  obeys  the  call. 
But  at  a  year's  end  shall  we  find  these  same  pews 
filled  with  families,  taking  a  part  in  worship,  and 
listening  to  a  preacher  ?  T  think  not.  In  one  such 
Church  there  will  be  enacted  a  sensuous  theatric  super- 
stition ; — in  another  a  lecturer  will  take  his  turn  ;  and 
there  will  be  a  platform,  a  moderator,  and  a  debate ; 
and  the  question  Avill  be — I  should  blush  to  put  it  in 
words,  for  I  fancy  of  what  quality  that  question  will 
be.  You  will  comfort  me  by  the  assurance  that  the 
pulpits  from  which  fanatics  have  been  driven  will  hence- 
forward be  occupied  by  philosophers — that  is  to  say, 
by  men  who  will  set  about  mending  the  world,  and 
keeping  it  in  repair  by  application  of  abstract  truths — 
pure  Theisms.     Yes,  and  so  may  a  man  employ  himself 


286  THE   RESTORATION   OP   BELIEF. 

in  carving  a  block  of  granite  with  a  penknife,  or  in 
moulding  a  mass  of  clay  with  a  straw. 

You  have  lost  your  standing  of  unmeasured  hope 
and  fear,  grounded  upon  an  attested  message  from 
God ;  and  now  what  has  become  of  the  inert  multi- 
tude ?  Do  you  think  they  will  be  patient  listeners  to 
your  Spinoza  Gospel  ?  or  will  they  comprehend  your 
Hegelian  nihilism  ?  I  think  this  mass  will  have  gently 
subsided  into  its  own  native  slough  of  easy,  pleasure- 
loving  sensuousness  and  sensuality. 

The  repugnant  and  the  ungovernable,  where  are 
they  ?  Lately,  and  so  long  as  religious  opinion  hemmed 
them  in,  they  were  restrained  or  abashed  to  a  great 
extent.  But  now  they  are  told  that  all  shall  be  well 
with  them  in  the  end — that  the  alarms  of  conscience 
are  nugatory  misgivings,  which  should  be  treated  with 
sulphate  of  quinine  and  a  shower-bath.  They  are 
assured  that  philosophers,  though  they  are  not  agreed 
upon  the  question  whether  "  absorption  "  or  "annihi- 
lation" is  to  be  the  next  stage  of  the  "I"  or  the 
"  ME,"  yet  are  unanimous-  in  the  opinion  that  the  one 
or  the  other  of  these  desirable  issues  awaits  us  ;  and 
certainly  not  the  fabled  immortality  of  the  Christian 
superstition. 

I  ask  you — and  I  ask  you  to  give  me  an  outspoken 
and  truthful  answer  to  this  question — whether,  in  the 
now  actual  state  of  abstract  Philosophy,  as  taught 
among  those  who  reject  Christianity,  any  announce- 
ment that  should  be  morally  better  than  this  can  be 
made  when  you  convoke  the  Church-going  inert  mul- 
titude to  listen  to  their  last  sermon,  and  to  receive  the 
philosophic  benediction  ? 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF.        287 

But  what  has  become  of  the  cordial  Few — whither 
has  fled  the  life-blood  of  the  social  body  ?  They  have 
sickened  and  fainted  on  the  spot  where  these  sounds  of 
dismay  first  fell  upon  their  hearing.  Their  hearts  broke 
at  the  blow.  They  can  no  more  lift  a  hand  in  works 
of  charity ;  they  can  no  more  set  a  foot  forward  upon 
the  flinty  path  of  self-denying  love.  The  wretched 
and  the  hungry  and  the  sick  call  for  them ;  but  they 
are  as  the  dead  that  hear  not. 

But  I  now  imagine  a  contrary  course  of  things,  but 
a  sudden  and  general  enhancement  of  religious  feeling, 
arising  we  know  not  whence  or  why,  and  after  a  while 
subsiding ;  but  what  might  fitly  be  called — a  Restora- 
tion of  Belief;  that  is  to  say,  a  confirmed  rational 
confidence  in  the  Divine  authority  of  Christianity  as 
attested  by  the  miracles  recorded  in  the  Gospels. 

In  what  manner  such  a  renovation  of  the  belief  of 
an  instructed  people  might  be  spoken  of  as  likely  to 
come  about,  I  need  not  now  stay  to  inquire.  It  is 
suflScient  to  say  that  whereas  the  critical  and  historic 
argument  in  support  of  this  belief  stands  at  this  time 
intact  and  valid,  having  of  late  years  passed  through 
the  severest  process  of  adverse  analysis,  almost  any 
incidental  occurrence,  almost  any  casual  coincidence 
turning  up,  unlooked  for,  on  the  path  of  the  critic  or 
the  antiquarian,  which  should  arrest  attention  and  fix 
it  upon  the  facts  of  the  evangelic  history,  would  sufiice 
for  bringing  on  the  sort  of  revolution  I  am  now  think- 
ing of. 

What  is  needed  just  now  is  not  the  creation  or  the 
evolution  of  a  new  body  of  evidence,  but  the  awaken- 
ing and  riveting  of  attention  upon  that  which  has  long 


288  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

been  in  our  hands.  In  a  pitchy-dark  night  a  party  of 
travelers  has  come,  they  know  not  where ;  but  they 
feel  that  a  pavement  is  under  their  feet :  it  is  affirmed 
among  them,  and  debated,  and  denied,  that  they  have 
reached  the  principal  square  of  a  city  : — at  the  instant 
a  flash  of  lightning  reveals  the  broad  fronts  of  palaces, 
with  a  back-ground  of  domes,  spires,  castles ;  and  thus 
all  argument  is  at  an  end.  I  think  that  at  this  very 
moment,  when  a  murky  cloud  of  atheistic  darkness  has 
settled  itself  down  upon  continental  Europe,  the  skirts 
of  which  chill  these  islands,  the  incidental  coming  up 
of  any  corroborative  facts,  within  and  upon  the  walks 
of  historical  criticism  or  of  science,  which  should  en- 
gage the  attention  of  educated  men,  would  be  enough 
to  dissipate  this  gloom,  as  affecting  ourselves,  and  to 
refresh  and  restore  our  confidence  in  the  Truth  which, 
as  a  nation,  we  profess. 

But  grant  only  such  a  refreshment  to  be  possible, 
and  imagine  it  actually  to  have  taken  place,  and  then, 
as  if  awakening  from  a  troubled  dream,  as  if  shaking 
off  a  lethargy,  we  feel  that  the  unseen  and  the  future, 
as  set  before  us  in  the  Gospel,  are  near  at  hand,  and 
that  this  future  is  what  awaits  each  of  us  at  every 
instant.  Now  the  consequences,  personal  and  social, 
of  such  a  return  to  a  vivid  Christian  Belief,  all  go  over 
to  the  side  of  those  energies  which  promote  and  con- 
firm our  individual  well-being,  and  the  welfare  of  the 
community ;  that  is  to  say,  Christ  becomes,  at  once,  the 
Saviour  of  the  living,  the  moment  when  his  claim  to  be 
such  is  assented  to  in  the  world.  And  when  this  claim 
is  allowed,  then  the  miraculous  attestations  upon  which 
it  rests  come  into  a  direct  causal  connexion  with  that 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  289 

earthly  blessedness,  of  which  the  Christian  system  con- 
tains the  elements. 

Without  calling  upon  the  imagination  for  aid,  we 
may  trace  this  connexion  till  we  come  to  facts  that  are 
now  under  our  eye :  we  begin  to  follow  the  links  of 
this  chain  in  that  hour  when,  as  the  sun  was  going 
down  behind  the  Galilean  hills,  and  the  waters  of  the 
lake  were  darkening,  a  transaction  had  place  which, 
from  that  moment  to  this,  has  never  ceased  to  yield  its 
results  in  the  form  of  ponderable  and  calculable  chari- 
ties, whence  the  hungry  and  wretched  throughout  all 
time  since  have  drawn  supplies. 

Jesus  seeing  the  multitudes  had  compassion  on  them, 
because  they  had  continued  crowding  around  him,  day 
after  day,  until  their  stores  were  spent.  He  marshalled 
them  in  companies — for  He  was  a  lover  of  order ;  He 
blessed  the  bread  that  came  to  His  hand,  and.  from 
that  hand  distribution  was  made  until  all  were  satis- 
fied. There  are  two  things  noticeable  in  this  event. 
First,  there  is  the  authentication  which  it  contains  of 
those  better  impulses  of  our  nature  which  prompt  us 
to  consider  the  welfare  and  comfort  of  others,  and  to 
do  whatever  may  be  done  to  meet  the  occasion  that  at 
any  time  calls  up  compassion.  This  is  the  doctrine  of 
this  history.  Next  comes  its  legislative  import.  To 
find  this  we  turn  over  a  page  in  the  Gospels,  and  there 
are  forewarned  that  in  the  closing  act  of  Christ's  ad- 
ministration of  mundane  affairs  this  should  be  held  to 
be  a  valid  judicial  test  of  character — "  I  was  an  hun- 
gered and  ye  fed  Me ;"  or,  on  the  contrary,  "  I  was 
an  hungered  and  ye  gave  Me  no  meat."  If  this  be  the 
rule  of  the   future  judgment,  then  the  feeding  of  the 

25 


290  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

four  thousand  is  not  merely  an  exemplification  of  be- 
nevolence, which  we  may  do  well  to  imitate;— it  is 
much  more. 

But  whence  comes  this  further  and  deeper  meaning 
of  this  instance  ?  It  springs  directly  from  the  miracle. 
If  this  history  be  true,  then  are  we  all  yet  to  be  dealt 
with  according  to  the  above-named  rule  or  law,  which 
we  find  to  be  in  that  case  made  and  provided. 

Now  through  all  the  years  of  these  eighteen  cen- 
turies past,  this  history  has  been  accepted  as  true — and 
moreover  the  judicial  inference  has  been  dulj^  ap- 
pended to  the  history  among  Christian  nations,  and  it 
is  so  now,  and  the  result  now,  as  always  it  has  been,  is 
seen  in  ten  thousand  "works  of  mercy"  as  they  are 
called — public  and  private — stated  and  occasional ;  the 
charities  administered  by  "committees" — the  crust 
given  at  the  cottage-gate ;  the  alms,  in  ways  innumerable, 
through  which,  at  the  prompting  of  natural  sympathies, 
strengthened,  deepened,  enforced  by  the  Christian  rule, 
and  by  men's  belief  in  the  Christian  future,  the  un- 
blessed— the  luckless,  the  unhelpful,  the  feeble,  the  de- 
crepit, the  diseased,  the  maimed,  the  blind,  the  deaf, 
the  insane,  receive  such  help  as  their  several  cases  call 
for,  and  admit  of,  and  which  the  hand,  heart,  and 
purse  of  their  fellows  may  afibrd.  The  Evangelist  tells 
us  that,  in  one  of  the  instances  now  referred  to,  the 
number  of  the  men  was  about  five  thousand,  beside 
women  and  children;  say  seven  thousand  altogether: 
now  if  we  take  each  unit  of  that  number,  and  give  it 
a  place  at  the  head  of  hundreds  of  thousands,  we  shall 
still  fall  short  of  the  truth  in  computing  the  hosts  of 
the  needy  who,  in  the  direct  line  of  moral  causation, 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  291 

have,  through  the  course  of  time,  eaten  their  bread 
daily  from  those  Galilean  baskets.  The  doctrines — the 
precept,  the  example,  alone,  would  not  have  taken 
effect  in  any  such  manner  as  this ;  but  it  has  been  the 
DOCTRINE — authenticated  by  the  miracle  :  it  has  been, 
not  mere  teaching ; — but  legislative  teaching. 

Now  there  is  a  feeling  which  is  natural,  and  there- 
fore not  in  itself  to  be  reprehended,  impelling  us  to 
ask  that  where  legislation  carries  with  it  the  most  ex- 
treme consequences,  touching  us  individually,  the  au- 
tlientication  should  not  come  to  us  remotely,  or  be 
attainable  infer entially  onl}'',  but  that  it  should  come 
home  to  every  man's  consciousness,  either  through  his 
senses  or  his  understanding,  in  a  mode  that  shall  be 
unambiguous  and  categorical.  Hence  the  demand  so 
often  repeated — "  show  us  a  sign  from  Heaven."  "  Give 
to  us — even  to  the  men  of  this  generation,  a  proof  that 
the  things  written  in  the  Book  are  sure,  and  that  we 
shall  find  them  so  hereafter." 

I  need  not  here  reiterate  the  customary  replies  to 
this  demand,  and  which,  if  fairly  weighed,  should  I 
think  be  deemed  valid  and  sufficient.  But  while,  as 
now,  we  are  thinking  of  Christianity  as  a  secular  re- 
forming force,  intended  by  its  Author  to  take  effect 
through  the  lapse  of  ages,  then  I  see,  in  the  mode  that 
has  been  chosen  for  establishing  the  authority  of  the 
system  in  the  minds  of  men,  throughout  all  time,  a 
proof,  not  merely  of  a  profound  knowledge  of  the  struc- 
ture and  laws  of  the  human  mind;  but  also  a  fore- 
knowledge (how  wonderful  if  its  author  were  such  only 
as  you  suppose  him)  of  those  revolutions  in  the  intel- 
lectual as  well  as  the  moral  condition  of  cultured  na- 


292  THE    RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

tions  which  the  flow  of  centuries  was  destined  to  brino" 
about !  To  me  it  seems  as  if  the  special  mood  or  tem- 
per of  this  very  half  century  in  which  our  lot  is  cast, 
had  been  in  the  view  of  IIim  whose  name  this  system 
carries. 

It  is  trite  to  say  that  during  ages  of  barbarism  and 
of  popular  ignorance,  and  of  its  attendant  credulity, 
genuine  miracles  could  scarcely,  under  any  conditions, 
be  made  to  offer  themselves  as  infallibly  distinguished 
from  the  spurious ;  but  unless  they  did  so,  their  legisla- 
tive autliority  would  be  vitiated.  If  I  go  back  to  the 
times  of  the  venerable  Bede,  or  of  Gregory  of  Tours, 
my  mood  of  mind  is  such  that  a  miracle  is  congruous 
with  it ;  and  I  can  look  at  it  calmly,  in  its  own  light ; 
it  does  not  put  me  aghast.  But  then  I  have  no  habits 
of  thought,  I  have  no  discriminative  temper,  impelling, 
or  indeed  enabling  me  to  deal  discretively  with  the 
wonders  that  are  daily  reported  and  shown  off  before 
me.  The  genuine  miracle,  therefore,  would  retain  little 
or  none  of  its  distinctive  force. 

If  from  that  twilight  age  I  come  down  to  these  days, 
even  to.  the  times  of  Laplace  and  of  Playfair,  in  which 
Science  bears  sway,  and  when  Philosophy  is  in  the 
wane,  or  is  even  scouted — at  such  a  time,  the  occur- 
rence of  a  miracle  would  be  to  me  a  shock  or  a  vio- 
lence, because  there  is  nothing  of  homogeneous  quality 
in  my  present  intellectual  condition.  Whether  I  will 
or  not,  I  am  now  governed,  and  in  truth  am  overawed, 
by  the  dry,  rigorous,  and  exceptive  temper  of  Science, 
and  by  the  soulless  and  boastful  mood  of  mechanical 
achievement.  Doing  homage,  as  I  cannot  help  doing, 
to  this  spirit  of  the  times,  the  supernatural  has  moved 


THE   RESTORATION   01    BELIEF.  293 

off  far  beyond  my  utmost  range  of  thought.  But  let 
me  not  forget  that  this  now-uppermost  mood  is  the 
mood  of  a  period  only  :  it  is  not  to  be  thought  of  as  if  it 
were  a  normal  condition  of  human  nature :  far  from 
it !  Aristotle  is  not  a  model  man ;  it  were  better  to 
take  Plato  as  such.  It  is  indeed  a  great  thing  to  re- 
solve nebulae,  and  to  construct  steam  navies,  and  to 
convey  thought  over  land  and  across  oceans,  and  round 
the  equator  upon  galvanic  wires : — these  things  are 
glories  if  we  are  comparing  our  own  time  with  any 
times  that  are  past :  but  they  are,  and  they  ought  to 
be  accounted  woeful  disgraces,  if  we  hear  them  boasted 
of  as  feats  that  symbolize  the  powers  of  the  human 
mind  in  its  ultimate  and  highest  possible  condition  ! 
If,  in  the  next  age,  Philosophy  should  dare  to  breathe 
again,  and  should  become  bold  enough  to  teach  humil- 
ity to  Science,  then  man — spiritual  and  immortal  as  he 
is — might  be  trusted  to  witness  miracles  anew ;  and 
thus  might  step  forward  into  the  place  that  becomes 
him,  where  he  would  calmly  hold  correspondence,  as 
at  the  first,  with  a  stage  of  the  universe  higher  than 
this,  and  would  be  permitted  to  look  onward  toward 
that  eternity,  on  the  threshold  of  which  his  foot  is  even 
now  placed.  And  yet  perhaps  it  will  always  be  true  that, 
in  proportion  as  men  become  consistently  reasonable,  and 
acquire  the  habitude  of  yielding  themselves  implicitly 
and  almost  involuntarily  to  the  conclusions  of  an  au- 
thenticated practical  logic,  they  will  gladly  accept,  as 
best  for  them,  the  unchanging  and  the  unchangeable 
certainties  of  historic  evidence  ;  and  being  content  with 
these,  will  cease  even  to  desire  recurrent  revelations, 
as  from  the  unseen  world. 

25* 


294        THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF. 

At  this  moment,  a  very  little  of  the  supernatm-al, 
taking  place  in  the  room  next  to  that  in  which  I  am 
sitting,  might  shake  my  reason  ;  for  it  would  not  find 
me  in  a  state  to  yield  my  judgment  or  conscience  to 
its  bidding.  Or,  if  it  did  not  make  the  brain  curdle, 
it  would  bring  me  under  peril  of  a  far  worse  kind ;  for 
I  might  be  tempted  to  resist  this  sort  of  appeal  as  to 
do  a  damage,  that  must  be  irremediable,  to  the  moral 
and  religious  constitution  of  the  mind. 

Quite  of  another  sort  would  be  an  occurrence  such 
as  I  have  already  supposed — namely — That,  in  the 
course  of  critical  and  historical  studies,  any  residue  of 
ambiguity  still  attaching  to  portions  of  the  evangelic 
writings  should  be  dispelled  ;  while  new  corroborations, 
such  as  in  the  nature  of  things  spring  up  whenever  a 
genuine  history  is  subjected  to  severe  scrutiny,  are 
continually  presenting  themselves  : — tlds  species  of 
augmenting  certainty,  coming  in  upon  the  reasoning 
faculty  in  a  mode  the  most  congruous  with  it,  in  its 
present  state,  invigorates  religious  belief,  and  yet  gives 
rise  to  no  excitement ;  faith  is  deepened,  and  is  made 
to  rest  upon  a  basis,  co-extensive  with  the  intellectual 
and  moral  faculties. 

If  at  any  time  amid  the  toils  and  tumultuous  striv- 
ings of  the  open  world,  or  if,  when  too  long  exposed 
to  the  factitious  excitement  of  non-christianized  intel- 
lectual society,  or  if  when,  well  satisfied  with  earth's 
choicest  delights,  I  so  rest  in  them  as  to  forget  the 
life  future  in  the  flowery  paradise  of  domestic  sweet- 
ness— if  at  any  such  time  I  suddenly  awake  to  the 
infinite  peril  of  losing  my  hold  of  immortality,  what  I 
should  ask  of  IIiM  who  "  knoweth  our  frame,"  and  its 


THE    REvSTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  295 

fraility,  would  not  be  a  new  miracle  wrought  in  my 
sight,  but  an  hour's  readinor  of  the  narrative  of  the 
miracles  of  the  apostolic  age,  with  a  stringent  convic- 
tion that  this  record  is  true,  and  that  in  those  wonders 
the  hand  of  the  Almighty  was  indeed  stretched  out. 


Just  now  we  are  all  of  us  saying  it,  and  we  are  say- 
ing it  under  the  impulse  of  the  most  diverse  and  oppo- 
site anticipations,  that  the  world,  or  rather,  those 
members  of  the  human  family  that  are  progressive, 
have,  within  these  few  years  past,  come  into  a  position 
that  is  new,  and  that  is  full  of  promise.  New  con- 
ditions, marvellous  indeed,  attach  to  the  mere  mechan- 
ism of  common  life ;  but  more  than  this,  new  views  of 
the  ends  and  purposes  of  the  social  structure  have 
come  to  be  entertained,  and  have  possessed  themselves 
of  leading  minds ;  deep  sympathies  and  solicitudes, 
which  we  barely  present  to  the  consciousness  of  any 
in  the  last  century,  take  eflfect  upon  thousands  of 
sensitive  and  benevolent  minds  in  this.  The  rudest 
and  most  ordinary  impulses  of  worldly  interest,  which 
heretofore  wrought  their  purposes  in  their  own  style, 
and  came  to  a  pause  when  they  had  attained  their 
end,  have  come  of  late — no  one  can  tell  why — to  under- 
work purposes  of  a  higher  order,  and  thus,  like  peasants 
trudging  along  a  miry  road  with  royal  despatches 
bound  in  their  girdles,  they  are  diffusing  blessings, 
where  heretofore  they  had  been  recognized  only  as 
what,  in  guise  and  speech,  they  seem.  There  is  nothing 
moveable,  that  is  not  astir ;  every  social  interest  is  in 
its  crisis : — the  sedimentary  deposits  of  past  ages  are 


296        THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF. 

heaving  up,  and  are  dislocated.  History  has  written 
out  a  long  chapter  of  man's  past  fortunes,  and  a  new 
leaf  is  even  now  rustling  between  her  fingers. 

Thus  far  we  are  agreed ;  but  not  at  all  agreed  either 
as  to  the  principles  under  the  guidance  of  which  the 
proximate  course  of  events  shall  proceed,  or  as  to  the 
issue  of  the  movement.  On  this  ground  an  extreme 
disagreement  takes  its  rise.  Two  roads  offering  them- 
selves as  the  future  highway  of  the  nations,  diverge  at 
this  point.  You  are  straining  the  eye  in  looking  along 
one  of  these  ways  :  my  belief,  as  a  Christian,  is  direct- 
ing me  to  look  along  the  other.  What  the  precise 
grounds  of  your  anticipations  are,  if  warranted  hj  facts, 
or  if  they  be  better  than  gay  reveries,  I  do  not  know, 
and  need  not  inquire : — whether  they  are  bright  or 
gloomy  I  do  not  know ;  perhaps  they  are  alternately 
the  one  and  the  other,  for  this  is  likely  to  happen 
when  theories  which  we  would  wish  to  cling  to  are  con- 
tending in  our  minds  against  the  uniform  testimony 
of  experience. 

As  to  my  anticipations,  though  they  are  steadily 
bright,  they  are  not  unmixedly  so,  far  from  it :  they 
much  resemble  one's  prospects  for  a  day's  journey 
when,  though  the  barometer  has  been  slowly  rising 
all  night,  the  morning  hour  is  much  overclouded.  I 
occupy  two  independent  grounds  of  divination  :  the 
first  is  a  purely  secular  calculation  of  that  course  of 
events  which  seems  not  improbable — all  things  now 
present  being  taken  into  the  account ;  but  my  second 
source  of  conjecture-,  as  to  the  future,  is  a  sketch  of 
the  world's  way  onward,  which  has  been  put  into  my 
hand  from   above,  and  which   I  look   into  with  confi- 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  297 

dence.   What  I  distrust  is,  not  the  sketch,  but  my  own 
hastiness  in  reading  off  the  lettering. 

Yet  assuredly  I  am  liable  to  no  such  overweening 
delusion  as  this — that  I  should  sit  down,  with  the  pages 
of  Isaiah,  Daniel,  and  St.  John  before  me,  and  should 
attempt  to  write  the  newspapers  ten  years  in  advance  ! 
This  is  a  folly  which  has  stood  in  the  way,  hitherto,  of 
a  warrantable  use  of  the  prophetic  writings.  I  am  no 
fortune-teller  for  Czars  and  kings,  and  have  no  wish 
to  peruse  the  palms  of  the  "great  men  and  the 
captains;"  but,  from  the  general  import,  or,  as  we 
colloquially  say,  from  the  drift  and  upshot  of  the  pro- 
phetic writings — those  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  espe- 
cially, I  gather  such  things  as  these — and  in  specify- 
ing them,  every  diligent  reader  of  the  Bible  will  at 
once  recollect  the  passages  to  which  I  might  refer ; 
and  as  to  others,  a  foot-note  of  references  would  be 
thrown  away. 

I  look  forward  to  a  time  when  national  distinctions 
of  race,  language,  and  geographical  location  shall  con- 
tinually be  melting  away,  at  least  so  far  as  they  may 
ultimately  be  obstructive  of  the  brotherhood  of  the 
human  family.  That  centralization — apart  from  uni- 
versal empire — which  a  true  understanding  of  the  con- 
ditions of  social  well-being  tends  to  bring  about,  and 
which  it  is  now  in  course  of  bringing  about,  is,  I  think, 
embraced  or  implied  throughout  the  prophetic  writings. 
On  the  same  grounds  I  look  for  a  future  time  when 
Right  for  the  many,  or,  better  expressed,  when  Right 
for  ALL,  shall  be  the  sovereign  and  irresistible  principle 
in  every  community.  As  to  Right  for  the  many,  it 
has  taken  to  itself  a  conventional  meaning,  which  diifers 


298        THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF. 

little,  if  at  all,  from  a  periodic  overthrow  of  society, 
such  as  may  give  the  undermost  class  their  time  of 
plunder.  But  Right  for  all,  means  social  stability  ; 
and  this  one  idea  of  stability,  as  opposed  to  anarchy 
and  to  periodic  convulsions,  meets  us  everywhere  on  the 
prophetic  pages.  Then,  as  the  consequence  of  this  my 
first  anticipation,  I  look  for  a  time  when  the  material 
Avelfare,  or,  as  we  say,  the  earthly  and  daily  comfort 
and  enjoyment  of  the  many — or  let  us  rather  say  of 
all,  so  that  we  may  exclude  that  banditti  meaning  which 
radicalism  clings  to — when  this  well-doing  for  all — 
this  secure  holding  of  the  most  needful  things  of  life, 
shall  be  so  much  thought  of  as  shall  in  fact  realize 
it  in  a  continually  more  and  more  complete  manner. 
Between  the  two  co-operative  influences  of  an  iron 
sense  of  right  and  justice  on  the  one  hand,  and  of 
humanizing  and  soft-hearted  sympathies  on  the  other, 
an  intense  feeling  shall  pervade  the  social  mass,  under 
the  operation  of  which,  want — still  incident  as  it  must 
be  to  man — and  squalor,  and  houseless  discomfort,  and, 
what  is  worse,  cellared  wretchedness,  and  disease — the 
child  of  filth,  shall  always  be  in  process  of  sublimation, 
and  shall  be  driven  off,  as  one  may  say,  from  the 
social  mass,  by  its  high  internal  temperature.  A 
strong  feeling  of  uneasiness  at  the  sight  or  thought 
of  privation  and  bodily  misery  shall  be  always  ridding 
the  world  of  these  ever-recurrent  evils.  I  look  for  a 
time,  not  fabulous  and  impossible — not  rosy  and 
celestial,  but  earthlike  and  sunny,  when  every  man — 
absolutely  secure  from  violence,  and  moderately  at 
ease,  shall  sit,  in  home  style,  under,  or  near  to,  as  he 
likes  best,  his  vine  and  fig-tree,  none  daring,  or  even 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  299 

wisliing,  to  make  him  afraid.  I  do  not  look  for  a  time, 
on  this  earth,  when  there  shall  be  no  surgeon's  work — 
no  hospitals,  no  infirmaries,  no  police ;  but  I  do  be- 
lieve in  an  age  of  individual  and  domestic  bliss,  such  as 
is  pictured  in  some  sweet  odes  and  stirring  paragraphs 
of  my  Bible.  I  bdlieve  in  a  time  yet  to  come,  when 
He  who — eternal  shame  upon  Manichees,  upon  As- 
cetics, upon  Fanatics  of  all  sorts — "  manifested  His 
glory"  first,  by  being  a  willing  guest  at  a  wedding, 
and  then  and  there  showing  that  Creation  is  His  own 
— when  He  shall  bless  the  world  by  bringing  at  once 
His  iron  sceptre  of  righteousness  and  His  law  of  love 
to  bear  upon  the  temporal  good  of  all  men.  I  look  for 
a  time,  when  He  who  is  "  King  of  Peace"  and  "  King 
of  Righteousness,"  shall  rule  the  nations  under  both 
titles;  and  when,  as  a  consequence  of  the  establish- 
ment of  uncontradicted  Truth,  and  of  Reason,  safe  from 
sophistry,  and  of  right,  bowed  to  and  enforced,  there 
shall  be  abundance  of  earthly  felicity,  to  last  until  this 
planet  has  wound  up  its  destined  story. 

In  the  course  of  those  events  that  have  marked  the 
years  of  this  current  century — that  is  to  say,  those 
ostensible  matters  which  history  takes  account  of — I 
scarcely  discern  any  indications  of  the  coming  on  of 
such  an  era  of  mundane  welfare.  One  may  imagine, 
to-day,  that  things  are  taking  a  turn  in  this  better  di- 
rection ;  but  to-morrow  (as  so  many  past  to-morrows 
have  done)  will  perhaps  scatter  every  supposition  of 
the  sort,  and  break  it  up  as  a  dream.  But  though  the 
evolving  fortunes  of  nations  do  not  clearly,  if  at  all, 
foreshow  the  golden  age  at  hand,  yet  it  is  true  that 
those  who  have  been  watching  the  unrecorded  move- 


300  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

ments  of  the  human  mind — in  Europe,  throughout  these 
fifty  years,  and  who  have  been  used  to  let  down  a  line 
into  the  under-current,  and  have  noted  its  shiftings, 
have  come  to  think  that  those  preparations — intellec- 
tual, moral,  and  political — which  would  be  the  proper 
precursors  of  a  new  and  better  era,  have  no-t  only  had  a 
commencement,  but  have  been  making  progress  at  a 
rapid  rate. 

I  shall  risk  nothing  on  ground  where  it  is  so  easy  to 
fancy  this  and  that,  just  as  may  suit  one's  purpose  in 
an  argument.  1  shall  put  into  your  hand  none  of  that 
advantage  which  you  would  so  soon  snatch  at,  if  I  were 
to  venture  forward  a  few  steps  on  this  path. 

There  is,  however,  one  of  these  preliminary  move- 
ments which  strictly  belongs  to  my  present  subject,  and 
to  which,  a  second  time  (p.  249)  and  in  concluding  this 
section,  1  will  advert.  What  I  mean  is  that  working 
off  of  the  anti-christian  and  atheistic  philosophy  which 
is  now  in  such  active  progress. 

You  and  I  are  just  now  looking  at  Christianity  from 
the  same  level : — you  are  regarding  it  as  an  invention 
of  man,  because,  as  you  say,  you  see  in  it  no  marks  of 
a  higher  origin : — it  is,  you  think,  a  scheme  of  belief 
and  of  morals  which  two  or  three  Jews  of  the  times  of 
Tiberius  and  Nero  may  easily  be  thought  capable  of 
concocting.  This  is  your  belief,  and  I  am  so  thinking 
of  it  (monstrous  hypothesis !)  to  serve  a  momentary 
purpose  in  an  argument. 

Now  while  forcing  myself  into  this  false  position,  and 
persuading  myself  that  the  Gospel  asserts  nothing  which 
we  shall  find  to  be  true  in  the  next  stage  of  our  exist- 
ence, then  I  am  perfectly  certain  that,  on  mere  grounds 


THE    RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  301 

of  secular  philanthropy,  nothing  is  so  much  to  be  wished 
for  as  the  spread,  the  corroboration,  the  Restoration  of 
this  Christian  Belief.  I  am  perfectly  certain  that  a 
nation  has  an  infinitely  better  prospect  of  coming  into 
the  enjoyment  of  peaceful  good,  while  holding  this  be- 
lief, than  it  can  have  in  rejecting  it,  and  in  taking  in 
its  stead — what  ? — Tell  me,  I  pray  you,  what  there  is 
to  be  taken ! 

At  the  impulse  of  this  firm  persuasion  I  now  there- 
fore exult  in  looking  on  while  the  process  is  in  progress 
which  shall  issue  in  the  final  engulphing  of  the  several 
anti-christian  Philosophies  which  are  at  present  making 
a  noise  in  the  world.  Each  in  its  own  way,  and  all  to- 
gether, these  schemes  are  forging  themselves  down  the 
slimy  incline  that  shall  shoot  them,  one  and  all,  into 
the  bottomless  slough  of  exploded  and  forgotten  absur- 
dities. 

You  are  acquainted,  I  may  presume,  with  the  course 
of  abstract  speculation  in  modern  times,  from  Spinoza 
down  to  these  days  of  the  Positive  Philosophy.  Now  if 
we  both  of  us  lay  aside  every  lingering  feeling  of  reli- 
gious anxiety — if  we  think  of  Theologic  Science  just  as 
we  think  of  any  one  of  the  physical  sciences,  then  it 
is  impossible  that  we  should  differ  as  to  what  must  be 
the  issue  of  the  present  course  of  reasoning  on  the  road 
of  Disbelief. 

We  see — and  do  you  not  see  it  as  I  do,  and  smile  to 
see  it  ? — we  see  intelligent  and  amiable  men  struggling 
to  keep  their  footing  on  some  ledge,  short  of  the  gulf: 
— rosy-cheeked,  honey-lipped  gentlemen,  they  are,  who 
would  gladly  keep  entire  a  Theism — patched  with  bor- 
rowings from  the  Gospels.     But  how  do  they  shift  their 

26- 


302  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

articles  of  belief,  from  year  to  year  ?  At  one  time  they  ' 
think  they  should  like  a  "  Resurrection  of  the  Dead, 
and  a  Future  Judgment;"  but  anon  they  come  to  think 
not  so  well  of  these  articles  as  once  they  did ;  or  it  has 
been  demonstrated  to  them  that  any  such  persuasion 
involves  the  "supernatural,"  and  cannot  be  retained 
unless  they  will  choose  to  stand  where  they  would  be 
in  hourly  peril  of  becoming  Christians.  It  is  well  for 
us  that  there  is  always  within  the  pale  of  intelligence  a 
large  class  of  minds  that,  by  fault  of  nature,  want  the 
analytic  force  which  would  enable  them  to  ascertain 
the  inevitable  issue  of  the  lines  of  thought  they  are 
pursuing.  Without  these  minds  an  awful  chasm  would 
yawn  between  Belief  and  Disbelief;  but  these  gentle 
spirits  bridge  it  over. 

You  well  know  that  the  endeavour  to  overthrow  or 
to  get  rid  of  Christianity  on  the  ground  of  historical 
criticism,  has  utterly  failed.  The  historical  problem  is 
still  unsolved  on  your  side.  You  know,  moreover,  that, 
if  certain  positions  are  abandoned,  which,  if  they  are 
retained,  we  must  in  the  end  surrender  ourselves  to 
Christianity ;  then  the  alternative,  which  is  as  sure  as 
any  conclusion  in  science,  is  a  choice  between  Material 
Atheism,  in  its  most  grossly  expressed  form ;  or,  Ideal- 
istic Atheism ;  and  this  latter,  if  it  has  any  meaning 
at  all,  may  be  summed  up  in  some  such  manner  as 
this  ; — "  Whether  there  be  any  existence  other  and  be- 
side the  '  Ego,'  I  do  not  know ;  or  if  there  were  any 
such  second  being,  I  could  never  come  to  know  it.  But 
then  I  do  not  hnoiv  that  I  know  so  much  as  this : — nav, 
to  speak  the  whole  truth  at  once — I  do  not  even  know 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  303 

that  I  do  not  know  this,  because,  for  ought  I  know,  I 
may  know  that  I  do  not  know  it." 

Putting  out  of  view  a  proper  religious  regard  for  the 
individual  men,  I  thoroughly  exult  in  standing  on  one 
side  as  spectator  of  this  rush  of  our  "Leading  Minds" 
"  down  this  steep  place"  into  the  gulf.  The  upshot  of 
Abstract  Speculation  on  the  side  of  those  who  reject 
the  Intuitive  Principles  of  human  reason,  and  of  the 
moral  constitution  of  man,  has  now  fully  shown  itself 
to  be  a  wordy  nothing  which,  though  it  still  clothes 
itself  in  sublime  verbiage  among  our  Teutonic  neigh- 
bours, will  never,  in  these  lands  of  common  sense,  fail, 
after  a  little  time,  to  be  rejected  with  indignant  con- 
tempt as  naked  nonsense. 


THE    SECOND   INTENTION   OF    CHRIST'S   MISSION,    AS   AT- 
TESTED  BY   MIRACLES. 


Christ,  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  made  no  formal 
profession  of  His  intention  to  do  what  He  has  actually 
done,  and  is  now  doing,  for  its  benefit.  He  did  not 
plainly  say  that  He  had  come  to  civilize  rude  nations — 
to  humanize  savages,  to  abrogate  slavery,  to  abolish 
polygamy,  to  bring  into  disuse  judicial  torture,  to  rid 
cities  of  the  sanguinary  exhibitions  of  the  amphitheatre, 
to  break  up  caste,  and  to  set  men  forward  on  the  course 
of  free  and  hopeful  improvement,  on  terms  of  brother- 
hood : — Christ  said  little  of  these  purposes,  great  as 
they  are  ;  but  now  that  we  see  what  it  is  which  His  re- 
ligion does  for  nations,  when  it  is  allowed  to  take  efiect 
upon  them  in  its  own  manner,  we  turn  anew  to  the 
record  of  His  sermons  and  parables,  and  there,  without 
difficulty,  we  find  the  efficient  principles  of  all  these 
silent  reforms,  and  can  trace  each  of  them  separately 
to  its  source,  in  this  or  that  word  of  power — precept, 
or  instance. 

It  is  quite  otherwise  when  the  same  Person  comes 
to  be  regarded  in  His  character  as  the  Saviour,  not  of 
men,  as  occupants  of  seventy  years,  but  of  man  as  im- 
mortal ;  and  so  as  the  Redeemer  of  those  who,  to  the 
world's  end,  shall  be  willing  to  accept  immortality  at 
(304) 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF.        305 

His  hands.  On  this  ground  there  is  no  doubt  or  am- 
biguity as  to  the  purpose  to  effect  -which  He  came  into 
the  world.  He  came  to  seek  and  to  rescue  those  who, 
in  every  age  and  country,  shall  "hear  His  voice" — the 
voice  of  the  "Good  Shepherd,"  and  hearing  it,  shall 
set  forward  upon  the  path  which  He  trod,  and  which 
He  opened  for  them,  and  so  shall  enter  with  Him  upon 
the  bright  fields  of  immortality.  The  Christian  scheme, 
looked  at  on  this  side,  wears  an  aspect  of  the  most  de- 
terminate simplicity.  On  this  side  no  mystery  attaches 
to  the  language  or  professions  of  the  Saviour ;  the  mys- 
tery is  that  which  shrouds  the  conditions  of  the  rescue, 
and  still  more,  its  li7nits.  Saved  or  lost !  who  shall 
surmise  what  is  the  meaning  of  either  of  these  words, 
the  mere  utterance  of  which,  with  thoughtfulness,  stag- 
gers the  reason,  and  which,  when  brought  to  take  a 
bearing  upon  those  who  are  now  walking  side  by  side 
upon  the  smooth  path  of  domestic  fondness,  rends  the 
heart,  and  quite  bewilders  the  moral  instincts. 

And  yet,  if  we  find  ourselves  entering  upon  a  scene 
where  thought  and  meditation  fail  to  guide  us,  we  soon 
find  that  there  is  no  way  of  retreat,  and  that  our  only 
course  is  onward,  following  the  beckoning  of  Him  whose 
leading  is  ever  toward  the  light.  And  now  as  the  scene 
is  shifted,  so  does  the  Person  stand  revealed  in  another 
manner.  Let  us  pause  for  a  moment,  and  well  con- 
sider what  it  is  that  is  before  us. 

It  is  my  steadfast  conviction  that  Christianity  will 
not  henceforth  maintain  its  ground,  as  related  to  the 
present  intellectual  condition  of  instructed  communities, 
so  long  as  "  Christian  apologists"  (so  called)  take  up  a 
position  upon  the  "outworks,"  or  spend  their  efforts 

2G- 


306  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

upon  the  well-meant  but  fruitless  endeavour  to  put  for- 
ward the  "  Historic  Evidences"  apart  from  that  prin- 
cipal TRUTH,  which  forms  the  substance  of  the  Gospel, 
So  long  as  this  Principal  Truth  does  not  occupy  its 
due  position  in  the  mind  and  faith  of  the  writer,  and  so 
long  as  it  is  not  boldly  presented  to  the  mind  of  the 
reader,  there  is  a  consciousness,  on  both  sides,  of  an 
interior  incoherence  in  the  system  itself:  there  is  a 
painful  and  perplexing  feeling  of  incongruity,  which 
sets  these  evidences  a  jarring,  as  well  in  a  logical  as 
in  a  moral  sense,  one  against  another. 

If  this  Principal  Truth  be  A  truth,  then,  to  misap- 
prehend it — to  hold  it  ofi',  as  if  it  might  be  accepted  or 
rejected  at  our  pleasure,  while  yet  the  historic  evidence 
is  admitted  to  be  conclusive  and  entire — is  an  error 
fatal  to  the  argument,  logically,  and  of  the  worst  ten- 
dency as  to  the  reader's  mind  in  a  religious  sense. 

For  my  own  part  I  could  not  attempt,  and  in  fact 
should  fail  to  have  any  motive  sufficiently  impulsive 
for  attempting,  to  set  forth  the  Christian  evidences  on 
any  other  ground  than  that  of  an  amply  expressed  and 
unexceptive  orthodoxy.  The  use  of  this  term,  which 
carries  with  it  a  clear  and  ascertained  historic  meaning, 
saves  many  circumlocutions ;  it  excludes  ambiguitieSj 
and  it  exempts  a  writer,  who  wishes  to  keep  clear  of 
what  would  be  a  theological  or  exegetical  argument, 
from  the  necessity  of  giving  expression,  in  his  own 
terms,  to  his  own  individual  faith.  No  further  expla- 
nation need  be  asked  for  by  the  reader  from  a  writer 
who  ingeniously  declares  that  he  professes,  as  his  Be- 
lief, the  several  articles  of  the  Nicene  Creed. 

Do  we  hesitate  to  commit  ourselves  to  a  Belief,  grasp- 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  307 

ing,  as  this  Creed  does,  conceptions  which  the  finite 
reason  labours  in  vain  to  apprehend  ?  Yet  before  we 
draw  back,  let  us  look  to  the  alternative :  let  us  inquire 
whether  we  will  commend  ourselves  devoutly  and  joy- 
fully to  a  Bright  Infinitude,  or  will  wander  forever 
among  schemes  of  Philosophy,  or  systems  of  religious 
belief,  to  not  one  of  which,  hitherto,  has  this  same  Rea- 
son, with  all  its  efforts,  succeeded  in  giving  a  tolerable 
degree  of  coherence  or  certainty. 

At  this  point  I  challenge  those  whose  pursuits  may 
have  qualified  them  to  accept  such  a  challenge,  to  look 
back  with  me  upon  the  field  over  which  the  human  mind 
has  been  travelling  these  eighteen  centuries.  There  are 
two  roads  under  the  eye  in  such  a  retrospect :  namely, 
that  of  Abstract  Thought,  on  the  one  hand,  and  that 
of  Christian  Belief,  or  Theological  Science  on  the  other. 
To  the  first  of  these  I  have  just  now  adverted,  and  shall 
not  repeat  what  I  have  said,  otherwise  than  to  express, 
in  a  varied  form,  a  profound  conviction — and  it  is  a 
painful  conclusion  to  come  to — that,  however  abundant 
may  be  the  means  available  for  constructing  a  Theistic 
Doctrine,  and  however  irresistibly  conclusive  the  argu- 
ment may  be  on  this  ground,  yet,  if  we  rigidly  deduct 
from  it,  as  we  ought,  all  aids  and  materials  that  are 
due,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  the  Hebrew  and  Chris- 
tian canonical  books,  we  then  find  ourselves  in  an  un- 
defended— an  indefensible  position  as  toward  the  very 
darkest  of  those  surmises  which  take  their  rise  from 
that  spectacle  of  misery  and  disorder  which  the  human 
family  has  everywhere,  and  has  always,  presented.  On 
this  road,  has  not  the  Terminus  been  reached  long  ago  ? 
If  it  were  required  of  us  "  to  report  progress"  in  the 


308  THE    RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

department  of  Abstract  Philosophy,  let  me  be  told 
whether,  as  honest  men,  we  could  affirm  that  those  who 
profess  to  shake  off  every  restraint  of  theological  bias 
and  religious  prejudice,  have  at  length  reached  a  scien- 
tific position,  which  is  so  solidly  based,  and  which  is  so 
well  defined,  as  that  it  commands  the  assent,  and  may 
»  boast  the  adherence  of  all  well-constituted  and  disci- 
plined minds  ?     If  there  be  any  such  Philosophy  which 
is  now  available  as  a  resting-place  for  the  human  mind, 
it  must  surely  be  easy  to  name  it.     No  such  Philosophy 
can  be  named ;  and  in  default  of  it,  or  until  it  shall 
appear,  nothing  stands  in  front  of  us — on  the  road  of 
Abstract  Thought — but   an  abyss  which   has   become 
much  more  terrible  in  prospect  at  this  time  than  here- 
tofore it  was,  because  the  lately-developed  depth  of  the 
human  mind,  and  its  enhanced  sensitiveness,  impel  us, 
irresistibly,  to  people  the  dark  void  with  ghastly  forms. 
Psychological  Science  (or  those  dim  conjectures  that 
are  its  precursors)  is  robbing  us  of  the  fond  illusion  that 
"Death   is   an   eternal   sleep."     Whether   or  not  the 
Christian  immortality  is  before  us,  there  is  an  after 
stage  for  man  ;  and  who  shall  say  what  may  be  its  con- 
ditions ?     Why  may  they  not  be  such  as  the  analogy 
of  things  around  us  would  suggest  ? 

The  intuitions  of  human  nature  impel  us  to  seek  re- 
lief from  these  distracting  speculations  in  a  theology  of 
some  sort,  and  which,  if  only  because  it  is  more  distinct, 
shall  be  less  appalling  than  are  the  fathomless  surmises 
of  a  Pantheistic  or  Atheistic  hypothesis. 

We  pass  over  then  to  the  road  of  Christian  Theology, 
or  that  line  of  dogmatic  belief  which  is  professedly 
derived  from  the  canonical  books.     But  among  these 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF.        309 

beliefs,  siicli  as  they  stand  before  us  on  the  pages  of 
Church  history,  which  is  it  that  we  shall  choose  ? 

I  think  it  will  be  granted  that  the  tenour  of  religious 
history — looking  now  to  the  speculative  (not  the  eccle- 
siastical) side — is  of  this  sort : — There  has  been  going 
on,  throughout  these  eighteen  centuries,  an  ever-renewed 
endeavour,  on  the  part  (no  doubt)  of  earnestly  purposed 
minds,  to  make  good  a  position  somewhere  short  of  tha^ 
Belief  to  which  the  Nicene  Creed  gives  a  formal  expres- 
sion. It  could  not  have  happened  otherwise  than  that 
such  endeavours  should  be  perseveringly  made,  and  that 
the  failure  of  one  of  them  should  suggest  and  prompt 
to  the  making  of  another.  The  restless  curiosity  of 
the  human  mind,  its  impatience  of  restraint,  and  the 
diverse  structure  of  individual  minds,  necessitate  these 
perennial  enterprises,  the  purpose  of  all  of  which  is  to 
win  a  resting-place  for  thought  where  the  things  it  con- 
verses with  are  measurable,  apprehensible,  and  subject 
to  its  control.  The  history  of  these  fruitless  enter- 
prises, if  it  could  be  candidly  written — if  it  could  be 
written  otherwise  than  as  under  the  polemic  title,  "  A 
History  of  Pleresies,  and  of  Heretics,"  would  supply 
the  best  sort  of  corroborative  evidence  in  support  of 
Orthodoxy ;  inasmuch  as  they  would  all  indicate  their 
rise  in  the  same  error  of  attempting  to  generalize 
where  the  object  is  unique,  and  can  have  no  parallel. 

But  now,  in  looking  back  upon  this  road — a  battle- 
field as  it  is — let  us  ask  which  of  these  heresies  (for 
convenience  I  so  call  them)  can  now  be  spoken  of 
as  a  successful  solution  of  the  difficulties  it  professes 
to  deal  with?  which  of  them,  from  the  apostolic  age 
to   this,  is  it  that  has  been  accepted  by  Bible-reading 


310  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

communities  as  proven  ?  which  of  them  is  it  that,  by 
fair  means  of  interpretation,  has  put  itself  in  harmony 
with  the  Text  of  the  apostolic  writings  ?  If  I  could 
divest  myself,  at  this  moment,  of  every  residue  of  reli- 
gious solicitude,  and  could,  in  that  mood  of  indifference, 
sit  down  to  review  the  heretical  series,  I  should  be  com- 
pelled to  grant,  concerning  each  of  them  in  its  turn, 
that  its  elements  are  incoherent,  that  its  argumentative 
style  is  tortuous  and  sophistical,  that  its  method  of 
biblical  interpretation  is  a  system  of  shifts,  that  in  sur- 
rendering oneself  to  it,  as  a  scheme  one  might  accept 
and  rest  in,  one  is  driven  to  wish  that  it  could  fairly 
divorce  itself,  either  from  its  philosophy  on  the  one  side, 
or  from  its  professed  regard  to  Scriptural  authority  on 
the  other ;  for  as  a  philosophy  it  is  burdened  with  the 
Bible ;  and  as  a  biblical  theology  it  is  spoiled  by  its 
philosophy. 

Not  one  of  those  schemes  of  biblical  belief  which, 
in  the  lapse  of  time,  has  disputed  the  ground  with  the 
Nicene  faith,  recommends  itself  by  that  charm  of  In- 
terior Congruity  which  this  latter  so  conspicuously  pos- 
sesses. It  is  this  alone  that  is  an  Entire  Belief,  and 
concerning  which,  it  may  be  affirmed  that  its  elements — 
abstract,  moral,  and  spiritual,  are  in  unison.  In  this 
Belief  there  is  proportion,  and  symmetry,  and  that 
grandeur  and  simplicity  which  is  the  inimitable  charac- 
teristic of  a  Great  Truth  in  any  department.  With 
this  Belief  at  my  heart,  the  logical  ground  of  the  his- 
toric evidences  is  firm  to  the  foot :  without  it,  while  at- 
tempting to  give  coherence  to  the  body  of  proof,  I  tread 
a  shifting  sand-bank.  Without  it,  the  supernatural 
narratives  of  the  Gospels  stand  out  as  unsustained,  and 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  311 

as  disproportioned  to  the  doctrine ;  and  I  am  fain  to 
rid  myself  of  them,  if  possible ;  with  it,  the  miracles 
of  Christ's  public  life  take  their  places  of  fitness  as 
the  graceful  accompaniments  of  the  ministry  of  Him 
who  "dwelt  among  us"  for  effecting  a  purpose  far 
greater  than  all  miracles,  and  more  arduous  than  the 
uttering  the  creative  fiat. 

.  Although  I  can  grasp  no  one  element  of  my  Creed, 
either  meditatively  or  scientifically,  for  each  is  a  pro- 
perty of  the  Infinite,  yet  in  the  meditative  contem- 
plation of  it,  I  am  at  rest ;  for  the  object  before  me 
contradicts  no  intuition  of  my  moral  nature.  The  con- 
tour is  that  of  Majesty — the  Person  meets  and  gives 
contentment  to  the  highest  conceptions  I  can  form, 
both  of  perfect  humanity,  and  of  Divine  -benignity 
and  wisdom. 

Then,  as  this  Catholic  Belief  is  entire  in  itself,  and 
as  it  fully  realizes  whatever  is  true  in  human  nature, 
and  whatever  we  may  conceive  of  as  proper  to  the 
Divine  nature,  so  does  it  interpret  itself  into  the  lan- 
guage of  my  own  spiritual  life  with  a  happy  and  a 
health-giving  facility.  Those  emotions  which  it  finds 
in  me  dormant,  and  which  it  wakes  up  in  me,  I  cannot 
but  yield  myself  to,  and  gladly  obey,  when  once  they 
are  thus  quickened. 

In  an  hour  of  perplexity  and  dismay — such  as  are 
incident  to  every  human  spirit  that  is  not  lost  in  sen- 
sualities, or  occupied  with  sordid  aims — if  in  such  an 
hour,  when  the  atmosphere  of  hopeless  woe  is  that  in 
which  one  can  breathe  the  freest — if  at  such  a  time  I 
ask,  and  ask  it  as  if  no  bright  answer  could  be  returned 
to  such  a  question,  what  that  eternal  life  might  be  of 


312  THE    RESTORATION    OP   BELIEF. 

which  I,  such  as  I  ara,  could  be  the  recipient,  and 
which  it  wouhl  be  possible  for  me  to  enjoy,  or  even  to 
wish  for — I  find  my  answer  in  my  Creed.  This  life 
of  the  soul — the  life  eternal,  is  not  what  I  am  either 
fit  for,  or  could  think  of  with  comfort ;  but  it  is  such 
as  it  is  fitting  for  IIiM  to  bestow  who  is  what  my  Creed 
declares  Him  to  be.  If  in  seasons  of  saddened  thought, 
amid  inveterate  hesitations  and  perplexities  and  mis- 
givings, I  take  up  the  several  rudiments  of  my  now 
actual  condition,  moral  and  spiritual — if  I  know  my- 
self to  be,  as  indeed  I  am,  disordered,  broken,  powerless, 
faulty  and  utterly  wanting  in  any  quality  or  talent  out 
of  which  I  might  perchance  work  the  price  of  my  re- 
demption from  this  state,  or  might  perchance  draw 
toward  me  the  eye  of  Infinite  Compassion — if  I  feel 
and  know  such  things  as  these,  and  if,  while  so  feeling, 
I  form  to  myself  some  notion  of  immortality,  even  of 
an  endless  consciousness,  with  all  the  odds  of  infinity 
against  me,  and  thus  ill  provided  for ; — thus  thinking 
in  a  way  which  I  am  forced  to  admit  is  according  to 
a  true  estimate  of  myself,  then  do  I  shrink  back  from 
a  boundless  prospect  of  golden  bliss,  and  ask  rather 
that  there  may  be  assigned  to  me,  as  heaven's  best 
boon,  the  dimmest  corner  of  the  universe,  wherein  to 
lie  forgotten,  and  wherein  to  while  away  the  cycles  of 
an  obscure  eternity. 

Thus  dismayed,  thus  uncomforted,  thus  tempted  to 
envy  the  natures  around  me  that  are  not  immortal,  if 
then,  by  help  given  me  from  above,  I  look  upward, 
if  I  look  Sun-ward,  if  I  turn  to  my  Belief,  and  accept 
it  such  as  it  appears— a  Truth,  heaven-descended,  then 
the  darkness  of  my  soul  is  dispelled  by  that  Light. 


THE    RESTORATION    OP  BELIEF.  313 

That  immortality  which,  when  regarded  from  a  point 
of  view  proper  to  myself,  is  inconceivable,  or,  if  con- 
ceivable, is  undesirable,  comes  now  to  be  contemplated 
in  its  own  light — it  is  life-endless  in  Him,  and  His  royal 
gift,  who  is  the  Light  of  Light,  and  the  life  of  immor- 
tality ; — it  is  the  gift  of  Him  in  whom  the  perfections 
of  the  finite,  and  the  attributes  of  the  Infinite  are  so 
blended  that  a  boundless  and  a  bright  hope  comes  to 
its  rest  upon  those  unchangeable  attributes,  brought 
within  our  reach  by  those  human  perfections. 

This  eternal  life,  which  is  offered  to  me  in  the 
Gospel — the  Gospel  being  interpreted  as  it  is  in  my 
Creed,  and  therefore  not  to  be  thought  of  as  if  it  were 
a  superfluous  announcement  of  known  moralities,  but 
as  a  revelation  of  Truths  quite  unattainable  by  reason 
— is  of  universal  aptitude,  in  relation  to  human  nature 
in  its  actual  condition  ;  and  it  must  be  so  thought  of 
even  although  in  fact  it  were  but  one  in  millions  that 
should  accept  it.  Christianity  is  not  a  religion  for  the 
religious,  but  a  religion  for  man.  I  do  not  accept  it 
because  my  temperament  so  disposes  me,  and  because 
it  meets  my  individual  mood  of  mind,  or  my  tastes. 
I  accept  it  as  it  is  suited  to  that  moral  condition  in 
respect  of  which  there  is  no  difference  of  importance 
between  me  and  the  man  I  may  next  encounter  on 
my  path. 

There  is  a  constant  tendency  in  minds  of  a  certain 
order — which  delight  in  first-glance  generalizations — 
to  assume  the  contrary  of  what  I  here  afiirm,  and  to 
think  themselves  very  wise  in  professing  the  shallow 
hypothesis  that  the  Christian,  if  he  be  not  a  hypocrite, 


314  THE    RESTORATION   OF  BELIEF. 

if  he  be  a  sincere  and  devout  man,  is  such  by  individ- 
ual organization — by  temperament.  It  is  not  so  : 
those  who  thus  think  want  discrimination;  and  they 
want  also  an  acquaintance  with  facts  of  this  class. 
"  Philosophers"  who  so  speak  are — smart  spirits  it  may 
be,  but  such  as  show  that  they  have  little  sympathy 
with  that  which  is  profound  in  human  nature ;  and  as 
to  their  own  souls,  there  is  not  depth  enough  in  them 
for  any  affection  that  roots  itself  below  the  sui-face. 

In  afBrming  this  in  the  most  categorical  manner,  I 
shall  not  be  contradicted  by  those  whose  large  ex- 
perience among  "the  religious,"  through  a  long  course 
of  ministerial  labour,  qualifies  them  to  give  evidence 
on  such  a  question.  Grant  it  that,  if  you  draw, 
alphabetically,  from  out  of  a  religious  community,  a 
hundred  persons  whose  habits  are  devotional,  and 
whose  course  of  life  consists  with  their  profession, 
this  selection  will  include  those  whom  one  might  in  a 
sense  call  the  "  devout  born  :"  by  this  phrase  I  intend 
to  designate  persons  whose  temperament,  intellectual 
and  emotional,  whose  sensibilities,  and  whose  tastes, 
are  all  of  the  kind  that  favours  the  happiest  developc- 
ment  of  the  religious  affections.  There  may  be  four 
or  five  such  in  any  hundred ;  rarely  so  many  as  ten 
or  twenty.  But  within  the  limits  of  the  same  hundred 
there  will  be  found  (and  yet  they  shall  be  unfeignedly 
religious  persons)  more  than  a  ten  or  twenty  whose 
piety  has  had  no  aid  whatever  from  what  it  has  found 
in  them — has  met  with  nothing  congenial  in  the  tone 
of  the  sentiments,  in  the  imaginative  faculty,  or  in  the 
rational.  Yes,  have  we  not  seen  and  well  known  some 
of  this  order,  and  been  near  enough  to  them,  for  a 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  315 

lenstli  of  time,  to  look  into  their  common-made  souls — 
to  see  through  their  honest  but  homely  hearts  ?  Have 
"we  not  seen,  admired,  and  loved  such,  and  been  cor- 
dially understood  with  them,  and  have  wished  to  be 
like  them — who,  if  you  could  abstract  from  them  all 
that  a  Christian  belief  and  a  Christian  piety  has  done 
for  them,  in  giving  them  intelligence,  in  giving  them 
taste,  and  a  sense  of  propriety,  in  shedding  a  healthy 
warmth  through  the  social  affections — yes,  and  in  quick- 
ening within  them  a  consciousness  of  the  sublime  and 
the  beautiful — such  that,  if  stripped  of  the  heavenly 
enrichment  they  have  received,  they  would,  in  most  of 
these  aspects,  have  been  as  the  dead,  the  deaf,  the 
blind,  the  idiotic  ;  so  marked  were  they  by  nature  with 
the  not-to-be-mistaken  stamp  of  inane  mediocrity,  that 
an  hour  in  their  society  would  have  been  an  intoler- 
able weariness.  But  they  have  become  what  now  they 
are,  because  the  "  eternal  life"  has  made  its  commence- 
ment in  their  hearts ;  and  because,  in  daily  and 
hourly  earnest  exercises  of  the  soul,  they  hold  com- 
munion with  Him  who  is — what  my  Creed  declares 
Him  to  be. 

Those  whom  the  Saviour  Christ — the  Good  Shep- 
herd, gathers  about  Him  from  out  of  each  generation 
of  men,  as  it  passes  forward  in  time,  and  who,  at  no 
time,  are  more  than  a  "  little  flock,"  are  so  chosen  as 
if  designedly  in  contravention  of  any  rule  of  obvious 
or  natural  causation ;  and  so  as  at  once  to  illustrate 
the  sovereignty  of  the  choice — to  display  the  omnipo- 
tence that  gives  effect  to  it,  and  to  demonstrate  a  deep 
truth — namely — the  universal  applicability  of  this  sal- 
vation to   human  nature.     Christ's  followers  are  in- 


310  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

deed  exceptional,  if  we  reckon  them  by  arithmetic : 
but  they  are  not  exceptional,  psychologically. 

Christ's  true  followers,  in  every  age,  are,  we  say, 
not  a  class  of  persons  who  might  be  pointed  out  before 
they  become  such :  they  ai-e  not  believers  of  the  Gos- 
pel by  idiosyncracy  ;  but  they  are  so  because  they 
have  come  to  know  the  truth  of  their  condition,  as 
toward  God,  which  is  the  condition  of  all  men  alike — 
whether  they  know  it  or  not.  Need  it  be  shown  that 
they  are  not  the  class  of  Mystics  ?  Mysticism  is  the 
religion  of  abstraction ;  but  Christianity  is  religion  in 
the  concrete :  the  two  mental  conditions  are  antago- 
nistic.  Mysticism  is  intellectual  voluptuousness,  and 
must  therefore  be  abhorrent  to  a  system,  the  first 
precept  of  which  forbids  self-seeking,  and  every  se- 
clusive  personal  indulgence.  Or  need  it  be  shown 
that  Christ's  own  followers  are  not  the  few  of  any 
ecclesiastical  enclosure,  any  more  than  they  are  the 
sturdy  adherents  and  warm  defenders  of  sectarian 
doctrines. 

Nothing  so  catholic  as  is  that  spiritual  life  into  the 
composition  of  which  there  enters  these  rudiments — ■ 
a  consciousness  of  guilt  and  helplessness,  for  one  part, 
and  a  correllative  intuition  of  grace  and  help  in  God, 
for  the  other  part.  And  if  there  be  these  rudiments, 
the  Giver  of  so  much  grace  will  doubtless  give  more  in 
due  season. 

How  comforting  is  it  to  meet,  on  one's  path,  with 
one  whose  spiritual  life  is  just  rudimental  in  this  sense  ; 
for  if  there  be  one  such,  there  may  be  thousands  whose 
names  appear  on  no  muster-roll  of  the  visible  Church. 
It  is  not  true  that  doctrine  is  of  little  account  in  the 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  317. 

spiritual  life ;  but  it  is  true  that  souls  may  live — live 
on  till  they  wake  up  in  immortality,  with  less  of  doc- 
trine worded  in  a  creed  than  human  language  could 
know  how  to  attenuate. 

Christ's  true  disciple  is  one  who — at  any  moment — 
at  a  call — at  a  beckon,  will  rise  from  the  couch  and 
table  of  worldly  enjoyment,  and  follow  him  through 
whatever  rugged  way  it  is  that  his  Guide  is  going.  In 
any  company  of  persons  who  have  entered  their  names 
in  ecclesiastical  lists — let  the  word — the  whisper  be 
heard — "  The  Master  is  come  and  calleth  for  thee," 
and  those  among  them  for  whom  the  summons  is  in- 
tended— rise,  at  the  instant — rise,  trembling  perhaps 
and  doubting,  but  yet  they  do  rise,  and  they  go 
"whithersoever  He  goeth." 

That  such  there  are,  and  more  than  a  very  few,  in 
each  following  generation,  is  a  fact  forcing  itself  upon 
the  convictions  of  every  thoughtful  and  ingenuous 
reader  of  the  history  of  Christianity  ; — forcing  itself 
upon  the  convictions  of  every  thoughtful  and  ingenuous 
observer  of  Christian  communities  as  they  now  are. 

These  facts,  which  I  assume  to  be  patent  and  un- 
questionable, will  receive  a  theological  interpretation 
such  as  may  best  accord  with  the  doctrinal  system 
which  we  individually  adhere  to,  and  which  we  allow 
to  overrule,  or  to  dispose  of  all  facts,  in  its  own  man- 
ner. Such  an  interpretation  may  be  nipped  in  between 
imaginary  logical  necessities ;  or  it  may  be  ample, 
ingenuous,  unencumbered.  Yet  either  way,  not  an 
iota  is  added  to,  or  is  taken  away  from  the  simple 
reality  with  which  we  have  to  do — namely  that  Christ's 
true  followers  are,  as  He  said  they  should  be,  a  few 

27'^ 


318  THE   RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.      » 

from  among  those  whom  visible  Christianity  embraces, 
and  upon  whom  it  confers  temporal  blessings. 

This  reality,  stripped  of  what  is  incidental  to  a 
Christian  profession,  and  of  what  is  merely  conven- 
tional also,  and  of  what  may  be  ambiguous,  reduces  it- 
self to  an  elementary  moral  and  religious  state  of  mind, 
which  is  variously  described  by  the  apostolic  writers, 
but  yet  always  so  as  to  embrace  the  ruling  idea  of  an 
intimate  conscious  relationship  between  the  human 
spirit  and  the  Divine  Nature,  and  as  this  Divine  Na- 
ture is  brought  within  the  range  of  human  conceptions 
and  of  human  emotions  in  the  Person  of  Christ.  It  is 
the  duty  of  every  one  who  becomes  alive  to  his  welfare 
in  the  future  life,  to  ascertain  for  himself,  alone,  the 
fact  of  this  relationship,  as  subsisting  or  not.  As  to 
others — and  as  to  all  around  him  who  take  to  them- 
selves the  Christian  name,  it  is  the  part  of  charity  to 
accept  every  such  profession  as  valid  and  genuine 
which  does  not  receive  a  glaring  contradiction  in  the 
life  and  temper  of  the  individual. 

As  to  the  limits  and  the  conditions  of  this  "  Charity 
that  believeth  all  things,"  we  have  nothing  here  to  do 
with  them.  I  am  now  thinking  of  the  Christian  scheme 
as  the  cause  and  the  source  of  spiritual  life  to  the  in- 
dividual human  spirit.  Now  if  a  hundred  such  in- 
stances could  be  laid  open,  it  would,  I  think,  be  found 
that,  for  one  that  believes  the  Gospel  on  grounds  of 
historical  evidence,  or  believes  it  because  it  has  been 
logically  proved  to  be  true,  ninety-nine  accept  it,  with 
a  perfect  assurance,  on  the  strength  of  that  sense  of 
congruity  which  itself  brings  home,  both  to  the  heart 
and  the   reason,  whenever   it  is   apprehended  by  both 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  319 

in  conjunction.  But  it  is  manifest  that  this  species 
of  intuitive  conviction  is  not  of  a  sort  that  can  be 
brought  within  the  range  of  language,  for  the  purpose 
of  conveying  it,  verbally,  from  one  mind  to  another. 
This  certitude  can  no  more  be  defined  or  described, 
than  can  any  primary  element  of  our  consciousness  be 
so  treated. 

Least  of  all  can  that  one  which  may  be  called  the 
very  element  among  the  elements  of  the  divine  life  be 
verbally  set  forth,  or  be  brought  to  submit  itself  to  the 
process  of  developement  in  a  string  of  propositions. 
This  rudiment  of  the  spiritual  life  is  a  consciousness  of 
the  Absolutely  Good,  more  or  less  clear,  and  which, 
to  the  human  spirit,  in  its  now  actual  condition,  in- 
volves a  correlative  consciousness — painful  and  hum- 
bling, of  moral  disorder.  How  can  such  an  awakening 
as  this  be  passed  through  without  anguish — without 
some  intensity  of  suffering  ?  Any  such  agony  of  the 
soul,  endured  at  the  moment  of  the  dispersion  of  the 
gay  dreams  of  self-love,  must  indeed  vary,  as  to  its  in- 
tensity, very  greatly,  according  to  the  structure  of  the 
individual  mi'nd,  arid  according  also  to  its  history,  and 
to  its  experiences ;  yet  may  we  surely  take  this  as  an 
axiom — That  where  there  has  been  no  agony  in  the 
moral  nature,  there  is  no  spiritual  birth. 

But  whence  comes  this  sense  of  congruity  which  I 
have  once  and  again  spoken  of,  and  which  brings  with 
it  a  ready  assent  to  the  first  truth  of  the  Christian 
scheme — the  ineffable  union  of  the  Divine  and  human 
nature  in  the  Person  of  Christ  ?  Certainly  I  shall  not 
here  attempt  to  spread  out  in  a  paragraph,  or  to  put 
into  a  string  of  sentences,  that  which,  as  it  so  soon 


320  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

transcends  the  meditative  faculty  to  grasp  it,  so  much 
sooner  baffles  a  writer's  faculty  of  embodying  his 
thoughts  in  forms  of  speech.  Yet  if  an  explanation  be 
sought  for  of  the  fact  that,  with  very  rare  exceptions, 
Christian  people,  whose  depth  and  seriousness  of  feel- 
ing indicates  itself  in  an  unambiguous  manner,  do  cor- 
dially accept  the  articles  of  an  Orthodox  Creed,  the 
explanation  is  discoverable  at  this  rudimental  point. 
The  leading  article  in  that  Creed  meets  the  awakened 
and  wounded  human  spirit,  and  so  calms  the  perturba- 
tions of  the  soul — it  so  satisfies  its  alarms,  and  so 
brings  it  to  its  resting-place,  as  that  the  textual  evi- 
dence, when  adduced  in  detail,  is  listened  to  with  com- 
fort, and  is  assented  to  with  a  spontaneous  confidence. 

Let  it  be  argued,  as  it  easily  may — very  learnedly — 
on  grounds  metaphysical,  and  on  grounds  ethical,  that 
the  Christian  doctrine  of  Propitiation  for  sin  (stated 
without  reserve)  is  "  absurd" — and  that  it  is  "  impos- 
sible"— and  that  it  is  "immoral" — and  that  it  is  every- 
thing that  ought  to  be  reprobated,  and  to  be  met  with 
an  indignant  rejection  ; — let  all  such  things  be  said, 
and  they  will  be  said  to  the  world's  end — it  will  to  the 
world's  end  also  be  true  that  each  human  spirit,  when 
awakened  toward  God,  as  to  His  moral  attributes,  finds 
rest  in  that  same  doctrine  of  the  vicarious  sufierings 
of  the  Divine  Person,  and  finds  no  rest  until  it  is  tltere 
found. 

I  have  just  now  affii-med  that  not  one  of  those  ear- 
nest endeavours  which  have  been  made  in  the  course  of 
centuries  to  establish  a  doctrine  of  lower  import  than 
the  Nicene,  has  had  any  permanent  success ;  and  the 
ostensible  reason  of  this  failure,  in  each  instance,  may 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  321 

be  found  in  its  want  of  accordance  with  the  canonical 
standard.  But  the  more  occult  meaning  of  these  suc- 
cessive shipwreckings  of  heretical  enterprises  is  to  be 
sought  for  among  those  laws  of  the  human  mind  which 
forbid  its  resting  short  of  an  intimate  sense  of  con- 
gruity  among  the  principles  that  are  offered  to  its  ac- 
ceptance. The  promulgators  of  such  schemes,  them- 
selves, find  no  repose  in  them ;  for  they  are  morally 
incoherent.  Souls  alive  toward  God  can  only  pine  and 
languish,  and  look  from  side  to  side,  until  they  find 
Him,  as  the  object  of  their  trust,  whom  they  thence- 
forward worship  as  "  God  their  Saviour."  Do  you  ask 
me  to  bring  forward  irresistible  proof  that  Christianity 
is  from  Heaven  ?  I  can  do  this  to  such  an  extent  as 
that  you  will  fail,  by  any  fair  means,  to  overthrow  my 
argument.  But  there  is  a  shorter  course.  Come  with 
me  now  into  the  presence  of  the  Infinite  Rectitude  and 
Purity: — when  there,  renounce  not  that  true  dignity 
of  human  nature  in  virtue  of  which  you  are  capable  of 
such  an  introduction  ;  and  which  makes  you  rightfully 
amenable  to  this  bar  ;  while  standing  confronted  with 
Eternal  and  Inexorable  Justice — learn  what  you  are, 
and  frankly  acknowledge  what  is  simply  true ;  and  it 
is  then  that  argumentation  will  seem  to  you  a  superflu- 
ous labour,  and  that  the  "  historic  evidences"  will  be 
superseded  by  the  powerful  workings  of  the  soul  upon 
its  own  troubled  consciousness. 

In  every  instance  in  which  Christianity  comes  to  be 
assented  to  and  accepted  on  this  ground — the  ground 
of  its  meeting  the  requirements,  and  assuaging  the 
anguish  of  a  quickened  spiritual  consciousness,  then  the 
miracles  of  the  Evangelic  history  at  once  shift  their 


322  THE    RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

position,  as  toward  the  reasoning  faculty.  Heretofore 
they  were  thought  of  as  so  many  proofs  (if  real)  of 
Christ's  mission,  as  a  teacher  sent  from  God ;  and  the 
one  question,  if  any  question  at  all  were  asked,  was 
this — "  Can  we  be  su?'e  that  the  record  is  not  falla- 
cious?" But  from  the  moment  when  the  human  spirit 
has  coalesced  with  the  Principal  Truth  of  the  Christian 
system,  then  this  series  of  miracles  takes  its  subordi- 
nate place,  as  alongside  of  the  course  of  the  Divine 
Deliverer  while  he  trod  the  earth.  IIow  can  we  ima- 
gine otherwise  than  that,  at  any  moment  while  on  his 
•way  toward  the  spot  where  he  was  to  expiate  the  sins 
of  the  human  family,  he  should  show  his  command  of 
nature,  and  of  life,  and  should  do  it  with  a  freedom 
and  a  copiousness  becoming  those  attributes  that  were 
shrouded  in  his  Person  ? 

It  was  undoubtedly  under  this  aspect,  that  the  writers 
of  the  canonical  Epistles  were  accustomed  to  think  of 
the  supernatural  adjuncts  of  the  Religion  which  they 
taught.  To  these  attestations  of  their  ministry  as  from 
God,  they  appealed  on  special  occasions  only  ;  but  then 
it  was  in  a  manner  which  forbids  the  attempt  to  dis- 
lodge them  from  their  place  in  the  system,  or  to  treat 
them  as  the  inexplicable  illusions  of  weak  minds.  Yet 
while  to  these  facts  they  make  none  but  incidental  and 
infrequent  references,  they  were  earnestly  intent,  first, 
upon  the  diffusion  of  the  Gospel  Message,  and  then 
upon  its  influence  in  governing  the  life  and  temper  of 
those  who  received  it.  No  moment  of  their  precious 
time  do  they  consume  in  the  endeavour  to  show  that 
Christ's  miracles,  and  that  their  own,  were  real ; — no 
solicitude  do  they  betray  on  that  ground.     What  they 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  323 

feared  was,  on  the  one  hand,  lest  men  should  reject 
this  Gospel ;  or,  on  the  other,  lest,  professedly  accept- 
ing it,  they  should  in  conduct  and  temper  deny  it. 

To  the  right-minded  Christian  of  this  present  time 
the  Evangelic  miracles  are  not  the  props  of  a  tottering 
belief;  but  they  are  the  food  of  delicious  meditation. 
He  peruses  so  often,  and  with  unsatiated  pleasure,  these 
narratives,  not  that  he  may,  by  these  means,  repair 
the  dilapidations  which  his  faith  sustains  in  the  open 
world;  but  that,  by  their  aid,  he  may  bring,  daily, 
within  the  range  of  his  conceptions,  the  conditions  of 
that  future  world  wherein  the  distinction  between  the 
natural  and  the  supernatural — arbitrary  as  it  is,  shall 
have  vanished,  and  where  a  perpetual  nearness  to  Om- 
nipotence shall  kindle  and  shall  keep  alive  the  feeling 
that  all  things  natural  are  always  in  truth  supernatural. 
There  can  be  no  miracles  in  a  world  where  the  unclouded 
blaze  of  Eternal  Power  fills  all  space,  and  is  visibly  in 
act  every  moment.  The  difference  between  the  natural 
and  the  supernatural  is  relative,  not  absolute — it  is  not 
essential.  We  so  account  of  events  of  this  kind  accord- 
ing to  the  position  in  which  at  any  moment  we  happen 
to  stand  toward  them.  Grant  me  so  much  as  this,  that 
the  miracles  recorded  in  the  Gospels — the  feeding  the 
multitudes — the  healing  the  sick — the  giving  sight  to 
the  blind — the  raising  the  dead,  were  looked  at,  not 
only  by  mortal,  but  by  immortal  eyes ; — that  while  the 
rude  multitude  pressed  around  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and 
were  filled  with  wonder,  and  said  "we  have  seen  strange 
things  to-day" — there  was  a  throng  supernal,  looking 
on  also.  But  to  these  the  very  same  acts  of  benign 
omnipotence  wore  the  tranquil  aspect  of  familiar  ex- 


32-4  THE    KESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

perience  :  with  them  wonder  can  have  no  place,  for  it 
is  embraced  and  absorbed  in  adoration.  These  mira- 
cles— so  we  on  earth  must  call  them,  and  which  we  are 
accustomed  to  speak  of  as  inroads  upon  the  course  of 
nature,  are,  if  truly  considered,  so  many  fragmentary 
instances  of  the  Eternal  Order  of  an  upper  world. 

It  is  often  alleged  that  the  miracles  (even  granting 
them  to  have  been  real)  of  a  remote  age  can  be  of  no 
avail  to  us,  at  this  time,  and  especially  in  this  our  ad- 
vanced condition  as  to  intellectual  culture.  Assuredly 
they  are  of  no  avail,  and  can  be  of  none,  to  those  who 
regard  Christianity  as  an  inexplicable  anomaly,  attach- 
ing to  the  history  of  that  anomalous  race — the  descend- 
ants of  Abraham. 

Let  us  take  the  centre  miracle  of  the  Christian  sys- 
tem— the  Resurrection  of  Christ,  and  see  what  is  its 
bearing  upon  the  mind  and  heart — upon  the  intellectual 
and  religious  well-being  of  one  who  accepts  the  Gospel 
as  the  groundwork  of  his  spiritual  life — as  the  reason 
of  every  fear,  and  of  every  hope,  which  he  allows  to 
sway  his  conduct. 

The  Resurrection  of  Christ  is  the  very  life  of  that 
inner  life — of  that  initial  immortality  which  is  bestowed 
upon  those  who,  in  every  age,  "hear  His  voice"  and 
"follow  Him."  These  hear  Him  say,  "Because  I 
live,  ye  shall  live  also."  "I  am  the  resurrection  and 
the  life."  "If  any  man  hear  my  voice,  though  he 
were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live." 

Now  we  may  follow  that  process  which  takes  place 
in  the  instance  of  one  with  whom  the  reasoning  faculty 
is  sound,  and  has  received  a  due  culture — who  is  in- 
formed in  all  matters  of  religious  history  and  criticism ; 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  325 

and  we  suppose  that  his  moral  history  and  present  con- 
dition are  not  such  as  to  breed  an  instinctive  wish  to 
rid  himself  of  his  belief:  on  the  contrary,  his  best  feel- 
inf^s  impel  him  to  wish  that  he  may  find  indubitable 
warrant  for  it.  Grant  it,  that  this  Christian  persua- 
sion has  not  been  acquired  in  a  strictly  logical  order; 
for  he  has  come  into  the  possession  of  it  by  education — 
by  devotional  habitudes,  and  by  the  involuntary  intui- 
tion of  his  moral  nature.  But  at  a  certain  moment  in 
his  course  he  makes  a  pause,  and  in  that  mood  of  firm 
resolve  which  is  characteristic  of  a  strong  intellect  and 
a  strong:  will,  he  determines  to  convince  himself  that 
his  faith  is  solidly  based  upon  what  should  be  its  pro- 
per evidence  ; — or  if  he  cannot  do  this — he  is  prepared 
boldly  to  renounce  it. 

For  the  sake  of  convenience,  and  to  avoid  circumlo- 
cutions, I  throw  this  descriptive  analysis  of  the  process 
of  belief  into  the  form  of  a  personal  narrative.  Thus 
resolved  then,  as  I  have  said,  I  set  out  on  my  road, 
taking  with  me  this  unquestionable  preliminary — 
namely — That,  if  a  religious  persuasion  is  to  come  into 
its  place  among  those  principles  of  action  which,  on 
any  supposition,  must  govern  the  active  and  moral  life, 
if  it  is  to  sway  me,  notwithstanding  many  impulses 
and  motives  which  might  prevail  with  me  in  a  contrary 
direction — if  my  religion  (be  it  what  it  may)  is  to  work 
in  and  along  with  the  established  mechanism  of  the 
world  of  mind — such  as  I  find  it  to  be,  if  so,  then  the 
confidence  I  may  feel  in  its  truth  must,  of  necessity, 
rest  upon  such  ground  as  that  an  opposite  belief,  or  an 
absolute  rejection  of  it,  may  yet  be  possible.  If  I  am 
to  become  a  religious  man,  in  the  Christian  sense,  then 

28 


326  THE   RESTORATION    OP   BELIEF. 

it  must  be  at  least  conceivable  that  I  might  become  an 
irreligious  man,  in  that  same  sense.  If  a  religious  be- 
lief is  with  me  to  be  the  same  thing  as  are  my  moral 
beliefs;  if  it  is  to  act  as  an  influence  countervailing 
other  influences,  then  it  must  be  possible  for  me  to  dis- 
believe. There  could  not  be  a  Christian,  in  a  world 
constituted  as  this  is,  if  there  Avere  not  always  room  for 
a  man  to  be  an  Infidel. 

Christianity  and  Abstract  Theism  occupy  precisely 
the  same  ground,  considered  under  this  aspect.  If  in 
this  world  of  discipline — this  world  of  educational  an- 
tagonism— this  world  of  products  wrought  out  of  con- 
trarieties— if  I  am  to  possess  a  faith  in  God,  as  my 
Creator,  Judge,  and  Father,  this  faith  must  be  the  cor- 
relate of  its  logical  opposite — Atheism,  The  Theist,  in 
this  present  world,  will  never  cease  to  find  himself  face 
to  face  with  the  Atheist.  Wherein  then  consists  the 
blameworthiness  of  the  Atheist  ?  it  is  this — knowing — 
and  he  cannot  be  ignorant  of  a  truth  so  obvious — that 
the  system  of  motives  to  which  he  conforms  himself 
every  day  in  the  open  world,  always  leaves  room  for 
an  exception  or  an  evasion,  he  snatches  at  that  excep- 
tion, and  he  uses  that  evasion  when  the  Theistic  evi- 
dence presents  itself  before  him  ;  but  he  does  not  do  so 
in  any  other  instance,  unless  he  be  fool  or  knave.  Tlie 
virtuous  man  is  one  who  manfully  holds  to  the  rule, 
and  spurns  the  exception,  and  who  scorns  to  escape  by 
the  evasion :  he  embraces  the  principle,  and  he  casts 
from  him  the  sophism;  he  adheres  to  universal  intui- 
tions ;  he  listens  not  to  the  paradox. 

This  premised,  I  go  to  work  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  evidences,  and  ask,  as  it  concerns  my  own 


THE    RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  32T 

prospect  of  immortality,  whether  those  things  are  sure, 
that  are  taught  and  affirmed  in  the  Apostolic  writings. 
It  may  be  that  I  should  have  preferred  some  other  me- 
dium of  evidence,  touching  a  point  of  such  incalculable 
moment.  But  whether  I  choose  it  or  not,  I  find  my- 
self handed  over  to  this  peculiar  species  of  proof.  Yet 
in  looking  into  it — on  the  supposition  that  God,  the 
Father  of  my  spirit,  challenges  me  to  accept  it,  I  find 
that,  as  to  its  completeness,  in  its  hind,  and  as  to  its 
conclusiveness,  the  body  of  historical  and  critical  evi- 
dence very  far  surpasses  any  other  instance  with  which 
it  ought  to  be  brought  into  comparison.  That  this  is 
the  fact  has  become  manifest  at  this  present  moment, 
inasmuch  as  the  strenuous  endeavours  of  accomplished 
men,  inflamed  with  the  ambition  to  overthrow  Christi- 
anity, have  confessedly  broken  down.  After  reading 
what  has  been  written  with  this  view,  I  find  that  I  can 
in  no  way  disengage  myself  from  this  evidence,  except 
by  forcibly  dismissing  the  subject  from  my  thoughts. 
But  I  go  on  to  sift  this  evidence,  at  intervals,  and  I 
do  so  with  all  possible  care,  and  in  different  moods  of 
mind,  and  I  come  ever  and  again  to  the  same  result. 
I  read  the  recent  antichristian  literature,  and  in  doing 
so  candour  is  sorely  tried  if  I  persist  in  supposing  that 
educated  men  are  honest  when  they  put  forth  what  is 
so  frivolous,  so  captious,  and  so  nugatory,  as  that  which 
they  advance  in  behalf  of  their  disbelief.  I  converse 
with  those  who  profess  this  disbelief,  and  instead  of 
rigid  argumentation — serious  in  its  tone,  and  ingenu- 
ous— I  am  met  by  a  style  of  reasoning  which  is  unan- 
swerable only  because  it  is  vague,  misty,  evasive  and 
sentimental. 


328  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

It  is  enough  : — I  see  that  before  I  can  stand  clear 
of  Christianity,  I  must  let  go  my  hold  of  those  ele- 
mentary convictions  which  rule  my  every-day  life.  To 
me,  Disbelief  must  act  as  a  solvent  of  all  logical  cohe- 
rence, and  must  discharge  from  my  mind  every  persua- 
sion which  binds  me  to  the  social  system  now,  as  well 
as  those  which  connect  me  with  immortality. 

I  return  then  with  assurance  to  my  Belief,  and  I 
surrender  myself  without  fear  to  that  train  of  medita- 
tion which  attends,  and  surrounds,  its  centre  fact — the 
resurrection  of  Christ. 

At  this  point  the  Supernatural,  in  an  instance  the 
most  signal  and  the  freest  from  ambiguity,  takes  a 
bearing  upon  my  individual  state  of  mind,  and  touches 
my  fears,  my  hopes,  and  my  conscience,  and  gives  a 
turn  to  the  emotions,  excites  the  imagination,  and  occu- 
pies the  reason.  That  Jesus  Christ  "  suifered  and  died, 
and  that  He  rose  again,"  is  a  fact  in  yielding  myself 
cordially  to  the  belief  of  which  I  pass  forward  from  one 
condition  of  existence,  and  come  into  another ;  and  this 
change  is  so  extensive  in  its  consequences,  that  nothing 
affecting  my  happiness  can  remain  unaffected  by  it. 
That  remote  event  with  which  I  stand  connected  throuo-h 
the  medium  of  historic  and  critical  evidence,  concerns 
me  far.  more  intimately  than  could  any  event  of  to-day 
which  should  entirely  change  my  individual  or  social 
position. 

What  those  changes  are,  severally,  of  which  a  belief 
in  Christ's  resurrection  is  the  efficient  cause,  I  shall  not 
here  attempt  to  specify.  I  will  speak  only  of  two  of 
them ;  and  of  these,  not  in  the  style  of  a  digested  and 
consecutive  discourse,  but  discursively. 


THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  329 

In  the  first  place  then,  an  unhesitating  belief  of  the 
resurrection  of  Christ — if  I  allow  the  meditative  faculty 
to  dwell  upon  it — leads  me  forth  from  a  region  of  in- 
terminable surmises  that  are  comfortless,  appalling,  or 
worse ;  and  it  brings  me  upon  a  ground,  that  is  firm  to 
the  foot,  and  where  those  objects  that  are  already  fami- 
liar to  me,  stand  out  distinctly,  and  are  sharply  de- 
fined ;  and  they  show  themselves,  not  in  the  glimmer  or 
in  the  blaze  of  a  vague  phosphorescence,  but  in  the 
every-day  sober  sunlight  of  this  present  world.  If  I 
carry  myself  back,  as  I  may  easily  do,  to  that  Garden 
under  the  walls  of  Jerusalem  wherein  was  a  sepulchre, 
or  enter  an  upper  chamber,  within  the  city,  or  go  on  to 
a  house  a  sabbath-day's  journey  south  of  it ;  or  travel 
so  far  as  to  the  shore  of  the  lake  of  Galilee ;  if  I  go 
thither  taking  with  me  no  haze  of  exaggeration,  I  there 
find  Him  who  is  at  once  the  Representative  of  the 
human  family,  and  its  Sponsor ;  and  I  find  Him  such 
after  the  sufi"ering  of  death,  as  He  was  before  it — save 
his  recent  scars.  The  immortality,  therefore,  which  is 
held  before  me  in  the  Christian  scheme,  is  no  such 
thing  as  a  nucleus  of  conscious  mist,  floating  about  in 
a  golden  fog,  amid  millions  of  the  same  purposeless, 
limbless  sparks.  It  is  an  immortality  of  organized 
material  energies  ; — it  is  the  same  welded  mind-and- 
matter  human  nature — fitted  for  service — apt  to  labour, 
and  capable  of  all  those  experiences,  and  furnished  for 
all  those  enterpi-ises,  and  armed  for  those  endurances 
which,  seeing  that  they  are  thus  provided  for,  and  are, 
as  one  may  say,  thus  foreshown  in  the  Christian  resur- 
rection, put  before  me  a  rational  solution — hypothetic 
indeed,  and  yet  not  illusory — of  those  now  imminent 

28- 


330  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

trials,  of  those  hard  experiences,  of  those  frustrated  la- 
bours, and  of  those  fiery  sufferings,  the  passing  through 
which  so  much  perplexes  and  disheartens  me  now ;  but 
which  at  once  find  their  reason  when  I  see  them  in 
their  intention,  as  the  needed  schooling  for  an  immor- 
tality in  the  endless  fortunes  of  which  this  mind-and- 
matter  structure  shall  have  room  to  show  what  thinga 
it  can  do  and  bear,  and  what  enterprises  of  love  it  shall 
devise,  and  shall  bring  to  a  happy  consummation,  it 
may  be,  cycles  of  centuries  hence. 

"  The  Lord  is  risen  indeed!"  said  those  simple  souls, 
one  to  another,  in  that  dim  morning  hour — which  was 
the  morning  of  a  Day  Eternal  to  human  nature ;  and 
He  so  rises  as  to  throw  forward  upon  the  path  of  this 
human  nature,  to  the  remotest  range  of  an  endless  ex- 
istence, a  steady  light  of  reality. 

Over  against  this  reasonable  and  conceivable  Chris- 
tian Idea  of  the  future  life,  as  it  is  set  before  me  in 
the  instance  of  the  Resurrection  of  Christ,  I  will  put 
the  dreamy  Elysium  of  classical  antiquity — I  will  put 
the  sensualisms  of  the  oriental  beliefs — I  will  put  the 
wearisome  and  vapid  inanities  of  modern  poetical  or 
philosophical  surmises :  yes,  and  over  against  this 
genuine  belief  I  must  put  those  more  consistent  suppo- 
sitions which,  at  this  present  time,  are  presenting 
themselves,  in  a  whisper,  as  probable,  if  we  are  to 
follow  the  guidance  of  psychological  speculation,  and 
if  we  are  looking  to  such  a  future  existence  as  the 
analogy  of  things  around  us  might  suggest.  As  com- 
pared with  all  such  anticipations — more  or  less  con- 
sonant as  they  may  severally  be  with  facts  known  to 
us — I  find  that  my  Christian  Belief  is  more  consistent 


THE   RESTORATION    OP   BELIEF.  831 

than  any  one  of  them,  is  more  realizable — is  more 
cheering,  is  more  animating,  and  that  is  of  a  tendency 
(when  rightly  considered)  the  most  healthful,  as  to 
the  moral  and  the  intellectual  faculties. 

And  ''  why  should  it  be  thought  a  thing  incredible 
that  God  should  raise  the  dead?"  Every  pretext  for 
thinking  it  so,  on  scientific  grounds,  has  been  snatched 
from  us  by  the  modern  Geology.  But  that  man,  such 
as  he  is — his  intellect  and  his  moral  nature — should 
cease  to  exist  at  death,  is  indeed  an  incredible  suppo- 
sition ;  and  yet,  if  we  feel  that  it  is  his  destiny  to  live 
anew,  then,  among  all  the  beliefs  to  which  the  instincts 
of  our  nature  have  given  birth,  whether  in  ancient  or 
in  modern  times,  the  Christian  belief  of  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  body,  by  which  we  must  mean — the  recon- 
struction of  human  nature  entire — mind  and  matter — 
body  and  soul,  is  incomparably  the  easiest  to  conceive 
of;  as  it  is  also  the  best  recommended  by  analogies ; 
and,  I  will  boldly  say,  it  is  the  belief  to  which  a  genu- 
ine philosophy  would  instantly  give  the  preference,  if, 
among  the  many  hypotheses  of  a  future  stage  of  hu- 
man existence  which  have  been  imagined  as  probable, 
it  must  make  a  choice. 

Yet  it  is  on  no  such  ground  of  its  abstract  credi- 
bility, that  this  fundamental  fact  of  the  Christian  life 
is  accepted  by  those  in  whom  that  life  has  indeed  had 
its  commencement.  As  to  those  of  them  who  are  in- 
formed and  intelligent,  they  can  at  all  times  fall  back 
upon  that  body  of  evidence  which  secures  them  against 
disbelief.  But  going  far  beyond  any  such  merely  in- 
tellectual persuasion,  Christ's  true  disciples  have  a 
sense  of  the  import  of  His  resurrection  which  renders 


332  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

them — except  as  towards  others,  indiflFerent  to  logical 
methods  of  proof.  Ask  them  for  a  reason  of  their 
faith,  and  they  can  well  meet  the  challenge ;  but  hav- 
ing done  so,  they  retire  to  a  ground  of  consciousness 
concerning  which  no  distinct  conveyance  can  be 
made  from  mind  to  mind,  through  the  medium  of 
language.  Verbal  propositions  do  not  represent  those 
intuitions  within  the  circle  of  which  this  conviction 
takes  place. 

In  vain  you  say  that  the  supernatural,  even  if  you 
were  to  grant  it  to  be  real,  is  a  remote  fact  which 
can  have  no  bearing  upon  our  individual  feelings  at 
this  time.  You  will  not  bring  me  to  think  so  while 
I  believe  that  Christ's  resurrection,  apart  from  the 
meaning  which  it  carries  as  to  the  futurity  of  all  men, 
is  the  proof — as  it  is  the  consequence,  of  the  efficacy 
of  His  vicarious  death  in  securing  for  us,  individually, 
the  remission  of  sins,  and  the  blessedness  of  that 
future  life. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  we  touch  the  real  matter  in 
debate  among  the  various  theological  controversies  of 
the  present  time.  If  this  point  be  determined,  then 
the  several  articles  of  religious  belief  must  follow,  in 
their  order,  with  little  question.  But  while  this  is 
undetermined,  no  argumentation  avails  to  bring  such 
controversies  to  a  conclusion. 

What  interpretation  is  it  which  we  allow  ourselves 
to  put  upon  the  admitted  fact  of  the  disordered  con- 
dition of  human  nature  ?  Is  wrong  right — seen  under 
another  aspect,  or  from  a  loftier  point  of  view  ?  Are 
crimes  misfortunes  ?  Is  sin  a  mistake  ?  The  answer 
we  give  to  questions  of  this  kind — and  they  may  be 


THE   RESTOKATION   OF   BELIEF,-  333 

indefinitely  varied — involves  the  whole  argument  con- 
cerning the  truth  of  the  Christian  system.  The  Chris- 
tian, leaving  the  Atheist,  the  Pantheist,  the  antichris- 
tian  Theist,  and  the  would-be  Christian  philosopbist,  to 
make  up  a  reply  among  themselves — and  there  is  no 
substantial  difi"erence  among  them — has  come  to  his 
own  conclusion  in  this  matter.  He  perfectly  under- 
stands, what  it  might  have  been  supposed  all  must 
understand — that,  to  confer  with,  and  to  treat  man  as 
a  machine,  or  as  a  brute,  or  to  condole  with  him  as 
"unlucky,"  but  not  culpable,  is  to  vilify  and  degrade 
him  still  more,  and  to  consign  him  to  a  series  of  hope- 
less descents,  until,  in  fact,  he  has  become  a  brute, 
and  might  well  wish  himself  a  machine.  The  Chris- 
tian feels  that,  cost  what  it  may  to  the  individual,  the 
true  method  of  treatment  with  human  nature — the 
hopeful  course,  and  that  which  indeed  lifts  him  up, 
and  does  him  honour,  is  to  assume  that  he  is  in  fact 
amenable  to  the  severest  law,  and  should  measure  him- 
self by  the  highest  standard  of  purity,  rectitude,  and 
goodness,  which  his  faculties,  intellectual  and  moral, 
enable  him  to  conceive  of,  or  to  comprehend.  In 
truth,  we  need  no  other  evidence  in  support  of  the 
principle  that  man  is  actually  amenable  to  such  a  law, 
than  this — That  when  it  is  placed  before  him,  he  in- 
voluntarily recognizes  it  as  abstractedly  good. 

The  spiritual  life  then,  or  the  first  stage  of  the  life 
eternal,  is  a  recognition  of  the  immutable  Law  of 
purity,  rectitude,  and  love,  not  merely  as  abstractedly 
good,  but  as  good  to  be  applied  to  man,  how  disastrous 
soever  may  be  the  consequences  of  that  application  to 
him  in  his  now  actual  condition.     Better  were  it  for 


334  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

him  to  be  condemned  by  such  a  law,  than  to  find  him- 
self villanously  discharged  from  court  on  the  ground 
that  his  nature  does  not  admit  of  the  application  of  a 
rule  so  high.  Better  that  he  should  be  condemned  as 
guilty,  than  vilified  as  pitiable.  Better  for  man  to  en- 
dure his  doom  among  beings  who  have  fallen  from 
heaven,  than  that  he  should  take  his  place  as  the 
"most  unfortunate"  of  the  mammalia. 

It  is  manifest  that  when  the  individual  man  has 
reached  this  point,  and  has  unfeignedly  given  in  his 
adherence  to  a  principle  of  government  to  which  he  is 
obnoxious,  the  depth  and  intensity  of  the  motions  that 
thence  take  their  rise  will  bear  proportion,  much  rather 
to  the  culture,  the  refinement,  and  the  sensitiveness 
of  his  moral  constitution,  than  to  the  extent  or  enor- 
mity of  his  personal  transgressions.  So  it  is  (as 
must  seem  likely)  that  those  whose  course  of  life  has 
been — in  the  world's  eye,  blameless,  and  whose  do- 
mestic phase  is  altogether  lovely,  often  far  exceed 
the  ostensibly  guilty  in  those  feelings  of  anguish  and 
abasement  which  attend  their  entrance  upon  the  Chris- 
tian life.  Shall  we  say  that  such  feelings — such  ago- 
nies, are  misplaced — are  groundless — are  morbid  ?  We 
may  say  it  if  we  wish  to  mark  and  notify  our  own  low 
place  on  the  scale  of  spiritual  perception. 

It  is  then  as  starting  from  this  point  that  the  seve- 
ral elements  of  a  Christian  belief  take  their  order  of 
sequence.  It  is  as  occupying  this  ground — the  ground 
at  once  of  humiliation  and  of  hope,  that  the  Christian 
accepts  the  articles  of  his  Creed — each  of  them  as  in- 
volved in  that  which  precedes  it.  It  is  thus  that  he 
professes  his  belief  in  the  mystery  of  the  Trinity — the 


THE    RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  335 

Incarnation,  and  the  propitiatory  sufferings  and  death 
of  Christ ;  and  it  is  thus,  and  it  is  as  standing  in  hope 
of  life  eternal,  that  he  welcomes  the  assurance  of  the 
triumphant  resurrection  of  his  Saviour,  who  "  having 
died  for  our  sins,  rose  again  for  our  Justification." 

To  many,  whose  religious  feelings  are  slender,  and 
whose  faith  is  mainly  conventional,  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus  is  coolly  assented  to  as  a  "  well  authenticated 
fact,"  carrying  with  it — of  course — the  truth  of  the 
Christian  scheme.  To  Christ's  true  disciples  his  rising 
from  the  dead  is  of  infinitely  more  moment  than  any 
such  attestation. 

I  afiirm  therefore  that  proposition  with  which  I  set 
out,  That  the  Supernatural,  as  we  find  it  in  the 
Christian  Scriptures,  is  not  merely  an  attestation  of 
the  truth  of  the  system,  as  a  Kevelation  from  God  ; 
but  is  the  ground  and  reason  of  that  hope  of  immor- 
tality which  is  the  life  of  the  soul. 


THE  THIRD   INTENTION   OF    CHRISt's   MISSION,   AS 
ATTESTED    BY   MIRACLES. 

In  entering  upon  this  ground  I  must  be  understood 
as  not  attempting  to  meet  all  possible  objections,  or 
even  to  satisfy  every  reasonable  doubt :  all  I  ask  is, 
that  those  with  -whom  I  may  suppose  myself  to  be  in 
converse  are  of  serious  mood ;  and  I  suppose  them  to 
admit  that  the  Christian  system,  such  as  we  find  it  in 
the  books  of  the  Ncav  Testament,  rightfully  commands 
the  thoughtful  regard  of  every  well-constituted  mind  ; 
and  also — That,  as  we  find  in  these  memoirs  an  histori- 
cal consistency,  or  Individual  Congruity,  which  is 
of  a  very  peculiar  kind,  it  must  be  reasonable  to  follow 
it  up  as  a  safe  guidance,  and  to  pursue  this  oneness  of 
the  Personal  Idea  as  far  as  it  will  carry  us ;  even 
although  it  may  lead  us  to  carry  our  thoughts  beyond 
the  boundary  of  this  visible  mundane  scene. 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  make  this  demand,  nor  to  ask 
the  thoughtful  to  accompany  me  a  few  paces  forward 
upon  this  dim  road.  What,  in  fact,  is  the  initial 
supposition  on  the  ground  of  which  we  consent,  at 
all,  to  listen  to  Christ  as  the  Teacher  of  things  which 
can  be  authentically  known  by  man  only  through  the 
aid  of  a  Revelation  from  Heaven  ?  Plainly  it  is  this, 
that  the  things  of  the  "  three  score  years  and  ten" — 
(336) 


THE  RESTORATION  OE  BELIEF.         337 

the  things  "seen  and  temporal" — the  things  that 
"perish  in  the  using,"  are  far  from  including  all  that 
we  have  to  do  with  while  these  few  years  are  running 
out ;  or  in  other  words,  in  surrendering  ourselves,  in 
any  degree,  to  the  Christian  argument,  we  implicitly 
grant,  that  the  Human  Family  stands  related,  not 
merely  to  the  Creator  and  Ruler  of  all  things ;  but  to 
a  great  scheme  of  Universal  Government,  which  is  de- 
veloping itself  slowly — and  in  part,  now  and  here  ; — 
more  fully  hereafter,  and  elsewhere. 

But  if  we  grant  so  much  as  this,  it  necessarily  fol- 
lows that  He  who,  on  entering  upon  this  earthly  plat- 
form, professes  that  He  comes  forth  from  a  higher  and  a 
wider  region  of  the  Universal  Government,  and  declares 
Himself  to  be  conversant  with,  and  to  be  perfectly  in- 
formed concerning  the  transactions  and  the  persons  of 
that  higher  stage  of  things,  should  in  His  discourses, 
and  still  more  in  His  acts  and  course  of  conduct,  give 
indications  of  the  same,  which  can  be  intelligible  only 
on  the  supposition  here  asked  for. 

Such  a  Visitor  from  a  foreign  world  may  either 
discourse  at  large  concerning  the  things,  the  persons, 
and  the  transactions  of  that  world  ;  or  He  may  observe 
a  rigid  reserve  on  every  subject  of  that  class.  Christ 
does  not  take  the  first  of  these  courses ;  He  does  not 
freely  and  copiously  speak  concerning  a  supermundane 
system  ;  but  neither  is  His  reserve  absolute.  He  utters 
himself  thereupon  in  a  very  distinct,  and  in  a  peremp- 
tory manner  ;  but  He  goes  no  further : — He  gives  no 
narratives.  He  relates  no  incidents;  He  says  nothing 
that  might  either  tempt  conjecture,  or  stimulate  curi- 
osity.    Yet  it  is  quite  certain  that  a  recollection,  on 

20 


338  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

our  part,  of  Christ's  professed  relationship  to  orders  of 
being  not  of  the  human  family,  is  indispensable  to  our 
completing  our  idea  of  his  Person,  as  interiorly  co- 
herent and  consistent.  Let  me  again,  and  with  em- 
phasis, use  that  comprehensive  word — Congruity,  and 
affirm  that,  whereas  this  majestic  harmony  of  the  moral 
ingredients  of  Christ's  individual  character — this  fitness 
and  symmetry,  which — if  we  make  allowance  for  the 
inconceivable  obliquities  of  a  few  minds — has  always 
subdued,  as  it  does  now  subdue  the  minds  of  men,  and 
does  win  their  reverential  affection — this  perfect  con- 
sistency, intellectual  and  moral,  would  be  marred  if  we 
were  to  set  off  from  our  conception  of  His  character 
this.  His  hypothetic  relationship  to  orders  of  being  that 
are  not  of  this  family. 

Does  not  that  conception  of  Christ's  demeanour  and 
style  which  we  gather  from  the  four  Gospels — does  it 
not  include  the  idea  that  we  are  in  the  presence  of  one 
who  is  acting  at  the  impulse  of  a  purpose  deep-hidden 
in  his  own  bosom  ?  Does  it  not  seem  that  he  has  a 
consciousness  of  facts,  in  which  the  men  about  him  are 
not  sharers  ?  Does  he  not  move  forward  as  if  he  were 
bringing  about  ends  remote  from  the  proximate  inten- 
tion of  what  he  says  and  does  ?  Christ's  acts  are  fre- 
quently, or  seem  to  be  so — incidental  to  his  principal 
purpose :  His  teachings  are  fragmentary,  because  the 
bearino;  of  his  doctrine  is  shared  between  this — the 
visible  world,  and  another  M'orld.  His  miraculous  in- 
terpositions for  the  relief  of  human  suffering  appear  to 
have  been  prompted,  at  the  moment,  by  human  impulses 
of  compassion ;  but  they  are  done  as  if  he  deflected, 
for   the   time,   from  his  course  in   performing  them. 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF.        339 

Does  not  the  Saviour  of  the  world  walk  the  earth,  and 
make  his  way  through  the  crowd,  as  one  whose  eye  is 
fixed  upon  objects  beyond  its  horizon  ? 

If,  in  an  attempted  explication  of  Christ's  language 
in  relation  to  a  spiritual  system,  we  adopt  the  meagre 
hypothesis  of  supposing  that  He  adapts  himself,  by  ac- 
commodation, to  the  superstitious  belief  of  the  Jewish 
people  of  that  age,  what  we  do  is  not  merely  to  abate 
our  confidence  in  his  sincerity  as  a  Teacher ;  but  we 
remove  from  the  historical  conception  of  his  character 
a  set  of  facts,  the  reality  of  which  is  indispensable  to 
its  completeness.  It  is  then  chiefly  on  this  ground  that 
I  feel  it  to  be  unavoidable  to  understand  his  language, 
when  concerned  with  an  invisible  world,  as  carrying  a 
meaning  that  is  literally  true. 

Assuming  so  much  as  this,  then  what  it  comes  to, 
expressed  in  the  fewest  words,  is  this — That  the  history 
and  destinies  of  the  Human  Family  have  become  (if  the 
word  may  be  allowed)  entangled  with  the  history  and 
the  destinies  of  tribes  or  orders,  partakers  with  it  of 
intelligence,  and  moral  consciousness,  and  liberty  of 
will ;  but  subject  to  another  administrative  economy, 
and  not  included  in  the  same  remedial  dispensation. 

The  consequences  of  a  belief  such  as  this,  whether 
imaginary  or  real,  are  nothing  to  me :  it  may  be  of 
ill-tendency  ;  and  I  am  sorry  if  it  be  so,  but  my  sorrow- 
ing will  not  make  facts  other  than  they  are.  Can  I 
walk  about  this  world — can  I  make  my  way  through 
the  streets  of  towns — can  I  enter  the  dens  that  consti- 
tute some  of  those  streets,  and  then  persuade  myself 
that  a  supposition  of  this  kind^  abstractedly,  or  that 
it  is  theologically  incredible  ?     Alas !  this  must  not  be 


340  THE    RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

said.  The  customary  pretexts  of  scepticism  in  relation 
to  subjects  of  this  class  belong  to  a  period  now  drawing 
to  its  close — or  passed  already  ;  a  period  of  shallow  and 
frivolous  thinking — a  period  when  the  actual  condition 
of  a  large  portion  of  the  human  race — imperfectly 
known,  and  little  thought  of,  and  less  cared  for,  had  no 
appreciable  influence  upon  systems  of  opinion.  Theo- 
ries of  human  nature  were  put  together  in  closets  to  be 
banded  about  in  saloons.  But  what  correspondence 
had  these  scented  things  with  that  real  world  into  the 
core  of  which  our  modern  philanthropy  has  carried  our 
feet? 

I  think  that  a  revolution  has  already  made  great 
progress  which,  in  its  issue,  shall  bring  about  a  far 
more  deeply-toned  belief,  as  to  the  spiritual  world,  and 
as  to  the  destinies  of  man,  than  has  ever  yet  taken 
hold  of  the  human  mind :  and  thus  if  Superstition  has 
tyrannized  the  ages  that  are  past,  a  quelling  con- 
sciousness of  awful  realities  shall  rule  the  future. 

It  is  Christianity  that  has  given  the  initiative  in  this 
revolution ;  and  it  is  the  same  that  shall  draw  the  genu- 
ine conclusion  ;  but  we  shall  be  carried  through  the  in- 
termediate stages  of  the  process  by  the  Atheism  of  the 
present  time,  which  has  the  nerve  to  do  what  itself 
only  could  do.  A  belief  in  the  bearing  of  the  Chris- 
tian scheme  upon  a  wider  circle  than  that  of  the  human 
family  must  carry  with  it  an  admission  of  its  superna- 
tural attestations ;  and  toward  such  an  admission  we 
are  tending — the  modern  Atheism  giving  us  just  now  a 
propulsive  aid. 

But  it  may  be  asked — Are  we  not  receding  from  the 
field  of   modern  intelligence,  and  going  back  to   the 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  341 

ground  of  the  "dark  and  pernicious  credulity" — which 
belong  to  an  age  of  ignorance  ?  I  do  not  ask  whether 
the  objects  before  rac  are  such  as  an  ignorant  age  will 
delight  in ;  or  whether  a  belief  concerning  them  be  of 
bad  influence,  or  otherwise.  It  is  certain  that  the  hu- 
man mind  has  universally  entertained  suppositions  of 
this  kind;  and  therefore  there  must  be  a  ground  for 
them.  I  wish  there  were  no  ground  for  them,  but 
there  is ;  and  nothing  is  gained  by  refusing  to  see  it. 
There  would,  in  truth,  be  a  powerful  motive  for  ridding 
ourselves  of  the  appalling  idea  of  a  Personal  Satan,  and 
of  his  hosts,  if,  in  renouncing  the  "Superstition"  wo 
could  also  dispel  the  "  darkness."  But  we  cannot  do 
so;  on  the  contrary,  if  we  refuse  to  admit  this  article 
into  our  pneumatology,  as  matter  of  history — then  the 
"  darkness"  which  shrouds  the  world  thickens  around 
us  so  much  the  more,  and  becomes  indeed  a  "  thick 
darkness,"  for  it  is  then  a  gloom,  without  a  gleam. 
So  long  as  we  retain  an  hypothesis  which  connects  the 
history  and  destinies  of  the  human  race  with  another 
history,  and  with  other  destinies,  we  retain  also,  in 
some  manner,  though  it  be  wholly  undefined,  a  sort  of 
hold  upon  the  future : — for  we  then  know  that  there 
is  a  course  of  events  in  progress,  which  may  issue,  we 
know  not  how,  for  the  better.  As  on  the  one  hand 
there  can  scarcely  be  a  greater  mistake  than  that  of 
supposing  the  ancient  problem  of  the  origin  of  evil  to 
be  in  any  way  solved,  or  the  mystery  in  the  least  de- 
gree cleared  up,  by  carrying  it  back  to  the  epoch  of 
the  Satanic  rebellion  ;  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  the  in- 
road of  sin  and  woe  upon  the  Imman  family  comes  to 
wear  a  different  aspect  when  it  is  thought  of  in  connec- 

29* 


342  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

tion  with  this  supposition.  So  thought  of,  it  is  at  once 
brought  into  relationship  with  that  scheme  which  is 
seen  to  be  unfokling  itself  froua  the  first  page  to  the 
last  of  the  Canonical  Books.  Seen  from  the  position 
into  which  we  are  insensibly  led  by  following  this  series 
of  writers,  the  evil  that  is  in  this  world,  and  its  attend- 
ant misery,  fall  into  perspective,  and  exhibit,  at  least, 
so  much  of  coherence  as  may  result  from  their  relation 
to  a  scheme  within  which  truth  and  order  reign  supreme, 
and  upon  which  a  light,  though  it  be  only  a  glimmer, 
does  shine. 

Especially  it  is  as  seen  from  this  position  that  the 
personal  behaviour  of  Christ,  and  that  the  professed  in- 
tention of  His  mission  toward  man  become  intelligible ; 
for,  to  think  of  Him  merely  as  the  Teacher  of  a  pure 
morality,  and  as  the  author  of  beneficial  secular  max- 
ims, leaves  the  greater  part  of  His  conduct,  and  of  his 
teaching,  unaccounted  for.  To  think  of  Him  further 
as  the  Redeemer  of  His  people,  though  it  supplies  much 
of  what  is  needed  to  give  a  meaning  to  both — His  be- 
haviour and  His  teaching,  still  leaves  as  much  unac- 
counted for,  and  the  clue  to  this  we  do  not  find  until 
we  accept,  in  a  literal  sense,  what  is  declared  concern- 
ing the  Christ  of  God  as  He  who  should  drive  the 
Usurper  and  Tyrant  from  the  world  he  has  invaded. 

This  might  seem  the  point  at  which  a  writer — in- 
tending to  propitiate  opponents,  and  to  smooth  a  path 
from  Disbelief  to  Christian  Faith — would  introduce 
some  hitherto  unthought-of  hypothesis  concerning  the 
universality  of  Redemp  ion,  or  the  possible  modes  in 
which  things  future,  whici.  we  find  to  be  inconceivable, 
may  yet  be   conceived   of.      I  am    about    to   attempt 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF.         343 

nothing  of  this  sort.  The  notorious  failure,  hitherto, 
of  all  such  endeavours  from  the  time  of  Origen  to  this, 
mio'ht  well  be  warning  enough  not  to  venture  a  step  on 
ground  where  there  is  no  footing.  One  scheme  after 
another  has  broken  down — and  necessarily  so,  because 
these  mitigative  theories  still  include  much  more  than 
those  will  allow  who,  on  this  very  account,  reject  Chris- 
tianity ;  and  they  assume  much  for  which  a  Christian 
man,  who  would  fain  find  it,  finds  no  warrant  in  the 
written  Revelation  ;  and  if  not,  how  shall  he  dare  to  add 
to  that  word,  or  to  strike  off  from  it  the  least  particle  ? 

The  easily  recognized  characteristics  of  undigested 
thinking — of  reasonings  prompted  by  a  predetermined 
issue,  and  which  are  reckless  of  evidence,  attach  as  I 
think,  to  every  one  of  the  hypotheses  of  universal  res- 
titution which  have  been  advanced  by  men  professing 
to  respect  the  authority  of  Scripture.  In  the  regions 
of  Science — reasonings  of  the  same  class — the  products 
of  the  very  same  order  of  minds,  come  under  the  fami- 
liar designation  of  quackery  : — a  dozen  philosophies  of 
this  sort  are  just  now  courting  ephemeral  notoriety. 
The  gravity  of  the  subject  now  in  hand  should  preclude 
the  employment  of  this  colloquial  phrase  : — otherwise 
it  would  very  fitly  designate  these  spurious  schemes, 
one  and  all.  In  a  sound  mind  the  momentary  solace 
which  attends  a  first  listening  to  a  scheme  of  this  sort, 
is  quickly  followed  by  a  profound  dissatisfaction,  which 
leaves  us  'in  more  discomfort  than  before. 

If  then  we  reject,  as  I  think  we  must,  the  mitigative 
theories  that  have  been  devised  for  reconciling  our  no- 
tions of  the  Divine  Benevolence,  as  related  to  the  des- 
-tinies  of  the  family  of  man,  with  facts  and  with  articles 


344  THE   RESTORATION   OF  BELIEF. 

of  our  faith,  what  do  we  bring  forward  in  the  place  of 
them  for  the  purpose  of  assuaging  that  state  of  distress 
and  perplexity  toward  which  we  are  always  advancing, 
just  in  proportion  as  we  steadily  think  of  what  is  around 
us,  and  look  forward  to  the  future  in  serious  mood  ? 

Although  it  be  confessed  that  there  is  no  hypothesis 
of  this  sort  in  reserve  which  a  Christian  man  can  bring 
forward ;  nevertheless  there  are  considerations  to  which 
a  belief  in  the  literal — or  we  may  say,  the  historical 
meaning  of  certain  narratives  in  the  Gospels  gives  rise, 
and  which  are  of  high  importance  for  maintaining  a 
religious  temper.  They  are  such  as  these.  In  the 
first  place,  the  interpretation  which  we  ought  to  put 
upon  Christ's  language  and  conduct,  wherever  He  had 
to  do  with  those  who  are  spoken  of  as  possessed  by  un- 
clean spirits  or  "demons"  carries  the  supposition  that 
the  relation  in  which  He  stood  toward  beings  of  this 
class  was  essentially  unlike  that  which  He  sustained 
toward  the  human  race.  This  marked  dissimilarity  is 
strongly  implied  in  various  ways.  The  passionate  utter- 
ances of  these  beings  (unlike  as  they  are  to  the  ravings 
of  maniacs)  were  in  no  case  expressive  either  of  hope 
or  submission :  they  bespoke  a  well-understood  and  an 
inveterate  hostility : — these  exclamations,  and  these 
sudden  recognitions,  speak  volumes  of  history — a  his- 
tory that  runs  far  back  into  the  cycles  of  duration 
past ; — and  it  is  a  history  of  which  there  are  chapters 
not  yet  opened.  On  the  part  of  Christ  there  is  indi- 
cated nothing  but  a  corresponding  and  a  settled  ad- 
verse feeling  which  has  no  reserves,  and  no  purpose  of 
relenting. 

If  we  go  so  far  as  this,  then  the  inference  is  irre- 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  845 

sistibie,  that  there  may  be  "within  the  universal  govern- 
ment of  God,  and  that  there  is,  in  fact — open,  conscious, 
and  hopeless  rebellion.  It  is  true  that  Abstract  Theism 
might  show  cause  for  refusing  to  admit  a  supposition  so 
appalling  as  this ; — but  can  we  indeed  walk  the  streets 
of  this  world — and  profess  to  think  it  incredible  ?  Alas  ! 
it  must  be  granted  to  be  possible — and  more  than  pos- 
sible. But  if  there  be,  as  we  now  say,  open  and  deter- 
minate rebellion  within  the  realm  of  God's  government, 
and  if  it  borders  upon  us  too — and  if  states  of  mind 
which  nearly  resemble  such  a  desperate  perversion,  are 
facts,  attaching  even  to  the  human  system,  then  must 
there  be  ground  for  a  fear — a  fear  which  the  ordinary 
proceedings  of  human  governments  show  to  be  reason- 
able, of  this  sort : — when  rebellion  is  rife  in  a  country, 
it  is  certain  that  men  who  are,  in  many  respects,  worthy 
citizens,  may  easily  come  to  be  fatally  compromised 
with  it,  and  may  find  themselves  in  the  end  consorted 
with  the  worst  of  criminals,  and  sharing  the  same  fate. 
Again  :  If  facts  be  as  we  are  now  supposing,  then  we 
get  a  means  of  rightly  interpreting  a  large  part  of  that 
discipline  which  we  are  undergoing  in  the  present  state. 
The  ulterior  purpose  of  that  severe  training  through 
the  stages  of  which  some,  if  not  all,  are  passing,  and 
which  constitutes  the  individual  history  of  some  men 
from  the  earliest  development  of  reason  to  the  last 
hour  of  life,  is,  as  it  seems,  the  formation  of  a  firm 
principle  of  religious  loyalty — an  enduring  acquiescence 
in  the  procedures  of  the  Divine  Government — a  prin- 
ciple so  fixedly  wrought  into  the  soul  as  that  it  may 
stand  trial  under  conditions  the  most  difficult  that  can 
be  imagined — not  only  of  the  life  now  present,  but  of 


346        THE  RESTORATION  OP  BELIEF. 

the  future  life.  Why  the  entire  schooling  of  a  seventy 
years  has  been,  to  some  men,  what  it  has  been,  becomes 
at  once  intelligible  if  we  admit  the  supposition  that,  in 
the'  life  future,  with  its  incalculable  revolutions,  such 
spirits,  thus  tried  and  proved  as  they  have  been,  shall 
be  challenged  to  undertake  services  in  relation  to  which 
this  immoveable  loyalty  shall  find  its  sphere,  and  shall 
be  nothing  more,  as  to  its  iron  nerve,  than  those  great 
occasions  shall  be  found  to  demand. 

Suppositions  of  this  kind  may  very  ill  comport  with 
the  notions  of  many  good  people  about  Heaven — and 
which  notions  we  may  grant  to  be  right  in  substance 
though  wrong  in  form;  l)ut  I  think  they  will  seem  not 
unfounded  when,  in  the  next  age.  Scriptural  Interpre- 
tation shall  be  unshackled,  and  shall  speak  out  the  full 
meaning  of  the  Inspired  Text.  Meantime  I  admit  no 
element  into  my  anticipations  of  the  future  life  which 
I  do  not  see  to  be  distinctly  symbolized  now,  in  the 
course  of  the  Divine  administration  toward  individual 
men.  Every  Sunday,  in  professing  aloud  that  "  I  look 
for  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  and  the  life  of  the 
world  to  come,"  I  understand  the  "world  to  come"  to 
be  such  a  world  as  that  the  present  world  shall  be  a  fit 
preparation  for  its  labours,  and  for  its  endurances,  and 
for  its  trials  of  religious  constancy. 

Again :  If  we  admit,  in  their  obvious  and  historic 
sense,  those  of  the  Evangelic  narratives  which  relate 
to  demoniacal  possessions,  the  Supernatural  element 
therein  implied  supports  an  inference  which,  when  in 
the  fewest  words,  and  with  the  utmost  caution,  we  have 
enounced  it,  should  be  left  to  carry  its  meaning  home 
into  our  hearts,  without  our  attempting  to  follow  it  out 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF.        347 

into  consequences — we  know  not  what,  and  for  which 
we  have  not  sufficient  warrant,  or  none  at  all. 

The  entire  series  of  miracles  wrought  by  Christ  dur- 
ing the  years  of  His  public  ministry  had — as  toward 
mankind — as  well  a  benevolent  intention,  as  a  benefi- 
cent issue.  This  fact  is  the  more  to  be  noted  because 
it  forms  a  point  of  distinction  between  Christ's  miracles 
and  those  of  His  ministers,  as  related  in  the  Book  of 
the  Acts — several  of  which  were  administrative  and 
punitive.  But  no  such  use  was  made  of  miraculous 
powers  by  Him  who  declares  that  He  came  into  the 
world  "not  to  destroy  men's  lives,  but  to  save  them." 
In  striking  contrast  with  this  rule  of  the  Supernatural, 
as  it  is  seen  to  govern  the  Saviour's  conduct  toward 
men,  is  the  rule  which  manifests  itself  as  often  as  He 
encountered  beings  of  another  order,  or  of  another  de- 
rivation. In  every  such  instance,  the  word  of  power 
carried  with  it  Law,  not  Mercy : — it  was  not  ven- 
geance ;  but  it  was  reprehension  and  repulse  : — the  im- 
plied meaning  was  ever  the  same — "  Keep  your  bounds 
— go  back." 

If  it  be  iisked — What  then  is  your  further  inference  ? 
I  am  prepared  with  no  answer ;  yet  there  is  before  me 
a  conspicuous  fact — there  is  here  a  difference;  there 
is  a  distinction  ;  and  this  fact,  which  I  know  not  how 
to  unfold,  consists  well  with  the  belief  which  I  gather 
up  from  many  scattered  notices,  strewn  over  the  cano- 
nical pages,  and  the  purport  of  which  is  that  the  Mis- 
sion of  Christ — the  Son  of  God,  and  Saviour  of  the 
world — was  to  overthrow  a  usurpation,  and  to  drive  the 
Tyrant  from  the  field  he  has  invaded ;  and  I  further 
gather  this  truth,  that,  in  carrying  forward  this  pur- 


348  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

pose,  lie  shall  not  fail,  but  shall  triumph ;  for  it  is  said 
of  Ilim,  that  "  He  shall  lead  captivity  captive."  This 
is  my  resting-place ; — it  is  not  indeed  a  place  of  sun- 
shine; but  it  is  as  a  "covert  from  the  storm." 

Let  it  not  be  said,  or  imagined,  that,  in  adducing 
considerations  of  this  sort,  the  intention  is  to  solve 
problems,  or  to  clear  up  mysteries : — we  may  hold  it 
for  certain  that  no  considerations  coming  within  the 
range  of  the  human  mind,  can  avail  for  any  such  pur- 
pose. But  what  may  be  looked  for,  as  the  fruit  of 
these  trains  of  thought,  is  this — namely,  a  giving  co- 
herence and  consistency  to  many  insulated  passages  of 
Scripture;  and  more  than  this — the  rendering  an  aid 
to  meditation  when  we  are  endeavouring  to  complete 
our  conceptions  of  the  Saviour  Christ,  as  the  Deliverer 
of  man.  A  principal  element  of  that  Idea — absolutely 
unique  as  it  is,  is  supplied  when  we  duly  regard  His 
ministry  as  it  is  related,  on  the  one  hand  to  the  victims 
of  a  usurpation ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  to  its  Chief  and 
His  adherents. 


THE   CYCLES   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

At  this  moment  a  lengthened  period  of  social  tran- 
quillity seems  to  have  come  to  its  end ;  and  as  to  the 
western  and  cultured  races,  it  has  been  peculiarly  favour- 
able to  those  reactions  of  the  mind  upon  itself  which 
are  natural  to  it,  and  beneficial,  in  their  ultimate  re- 
sults ;  but  for  which  no  leisure  is  found  in  seasons  of 
national  or  political  excitement.  We  are  entering  per- 
haps upon  a  period  of  arduous  struggles,  of  great  enter- 
prises, of  great  trials,  and  of  sufferings  as  great.  A 
period  may  be  before  us — not  for  amusing  ourselves 
with  ingenious  paradoxes,  not  for  dressing  up  philo- 
sophic schemes  of  opinion ;  but  for  daring,  and  for 
doing,  and  for  enduring,  whatever  energetic  men  may 
devise,  achieve,  and  bear.  The  ingenious  writers, 
therefore,  who,  with  so  much  zeal,  ability,  and  vehe- 
mence, have  been  labouring,  of  late  years,  to  rid  them- 
selves and  the  world  of  Christianity,  may  find  that 
their  day  is  gone  by — and  that  it  must  be  their  sons, 
or  their  grandsons,  who  shall  return  to  this  Crusade,  in 
some  future  time  of  repose,  like  the  past.  At  this  time, 
not  only  will  men  of  action  have  no  ear  for  bootless 
subtilties  ;  but  such  men  will  feel  their  need,  personally, 
of  principles  that  are  already  authenticated,  and  not 
now  to  be  sought  for  and  elaborated  in  closets.     Men 

30  (349) 


350  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

of  action,  who  will  have  much  to  suffer,  as  well  as  to 
do,  will  ask  for  grounds  of  religious  hope  and  solace 
which  time  has  consolidated,  and  on  which  the  good, 
the  wise,  the  great,  of  all  ages,  have  been  wont  to  rest 
in  their  hour  of  trial.  The  Christian  Belief  shall  airain, 
as  heretofore,  be  found  to  meet  the  need  of  humanity 
in  the  years  that  are  before  us — years — not  of  dreams, 
but  of  realities. 

As  to  the  apostles  of  the  modern  impiety — Atheistic, 
and  Theistic,  and  Pantheistic, — although  their  enter- 
prise has  failed  for  the  present,  and  although  their 
hopes  are  dashed,  they  may  console  themselves  with 
the  thought  that — if  not  to  them,  to  their  successors, 
another  opportunity  shall  arise  for  labouring  on  the 
same  stony  field.  The  Christian  system  will  itself 
evolve  principles  that  necessitate  these  periodic  strug- 
gles, and  that  give  them  force;  and  at  each  return 
with  augmented  force. 

At  this  time  what  is  of  more  importance,  and  what 
would  be  more  fruitful  of  good  than  any  imaginable 
triumph  over  Infidelity — on  the  field  of  argument 
would  be  a  wise  preparation,  on  the  part  of  the  Chris- 
tian community,  for  that  next  coming  season  when  the 
Gospel  must  anew  pass  through  a  crisis  of  mortal  in- 
tensity. A  main  part  of  such  a  preparation  would 
consist  in  knowing  clearly  whence  such  an  intestinal 
conflict  springs,  and  toward  what  issue  it  tends. 

In  affirming  the  Christian  origination  of  the  recent 
Infidelity  and  Atheism,  it  is  needful  to  distinguish  be- 
tween those  deep-seated  sequences  of  thought  which 
we  have  just  now  in  view,  and  those  obvious  and  inci- 
dental effects  of  patent  causes  which  might  have  been 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  351 

other  than  they  are,  and  which  may  or  may  not  bear 
upon  a  future  time.  The  fact  is  not  to  be  questioned 
that  much  of  the  Disbelief  which  floats  around  us,  and 
which  poisons  the  atmosphere  of  towns,  takes  its  occa- 
sion, or  derives  its  power,  from  what  it  finds  that  is 
wrong,  or  absurd,  or  merely  conventional,  in  the  Chris- 
tianity of  Christian  people.  Materials  of  this  sort  are 
rife  always,  so  that  men  of  acrid  temper  are  never  at  a 
loss  when  looking  about  for  occasions  of  that  scorn 
which  they  would  fain  heap  upon  the  Gospel.  There 
is  a  plenty  of  Disbelief  which  springs  up,  rank,  about 
sacred  edifices ;  but  what  we  have  to  do  with  at  this 
time  is — a  Spectre  that  rises  from  the  Adytum. 

The  Atheism  of  this  age  has  a  depth  which  is  its 
own  only  because  it  has  sent  its  line  down  into  that 
abyss  of  which  Christianity  withdraws,  in  part,  the 
veil.  This  Atheism  displays  a  grandeur  which  is  not 
its  own,  but  which  it  assumes  in  rearing  its  head,  and 
looking  upward,  beneath  the  vault  of  that  Infinitude 
to  which  it  has  gained  admittance  by  favour  of  the 
Gospel.  This  Atheism  shows,  and  actually  possesses, 
a  sensibility,  and  it  has  a  consciousness  of  the  true, 
the  beautiful,  and  the  good,  which  it  owes,  conspicu- 
ously and  entirely,  to  the  books  and  to  the  system 
which  it  denounces.  These  tones  of  tenderness  and  of 
purity  in  which  it  has  learned  to  utter  itself — if  we 
catch  them  at  a  distance,  so  as  to  lose  what  in  them 
is  articulate,  might  be  mistaken  for  the  silver  sounds 
of  God's  mercy  to  man. 

The  Atheism  which  startles  us  by  our  fireside,  which 
sits  with  us  in  pews,  which  flames  out  in  our  literature, 
which   is   the   Apollo    of  the   weekly,    monthly,    and 


352  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

quarterly  Press,  has  not  merely  learned  its  rhetoric  m 
the  evangelic  school,  and  thence  stolen  its  phrases, 
but  it  has  there  got  inspiration  from  a  Theology  of 
which  itself  is  only  the  necessary  antithesis.  Evoke 
now  from  Hades  a  genuine  Atheist  of  the  classic  Pagan 
Church,  and  bring  him  within  hearing  of  a  modern 
Atheistic  lecture,  and  the  very  terms  of  the  discourse 
would  be  unintelligible  to  him.  You  must  baptize  him 
before  you  can  convince  him  that  you  are  his  disciples, 
or  that  he  is  indeed  one  of  yourselves.  The  Creed 
in  which  he  lived  and  died  was  a  marble  paradox,  and 
you  have  a  great  work  to  do  in  him  before  he  can  be 
made  to  listen  to  a  breathing  sophistry,  with  its  Chris- 
tianized heart,  and  its  soul  of  fire.  An  Atheistic  phi- 
losophy which  is  indeed  earthborn,  and  which  steams 
up  from  the  dead  levels  of  the  Pagan  world,  is  a  mias- 
ma, in  breathing  which  nations  are  overcome  with 
drowsiness — intellectual  and  moral,  and  walk  about 
dreaming,  thousands  of  years,  unchanged.  But  a 
Christian-born  Atheistic  philosophy  comes  over  a 
Christian  land,  at  periods,  as  a  cloud,  riding  upon  the 
winds — it  mutters  blasphemies — it  smites  the  earth 
with  its  forked  scourge,  and  it  moves  away. 

The  very  same  body  of  facts  concerning  the  woes 
and  disorders — hopeless  as  they  are,  and  purposeless 
as  they  seem,  which  press  upon  humanity — these  facts, 
rudely  regarded  by  the  sages  of  pagan  antiquity,  and 
which  impelled  them  to  reject  the  hypothesis  of  a 
Supreme  wisdom,  benevolence  and  power — come  before 
us  now,  unchanged,  or  scarcely  mitigated,  and  they 
not  merely  perplex  the  reason — they  do  more,  they 
distract  us,  because  we  have  been  long  trained  in  the 


THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF.  353 

meditative  converse  with  an  idea  of  the  Supreme  "wis- 
dom, benevolence,  and  power,  immeasurably  surpass- 
ing any  conception  of  these  attributes  which  the 
ancient  mind  had  ever  entertained.  That  which  was 
an  insoluble  problem  to  the  ancient  classic  reason,  is 
also,  to  the  modern  mind,  a  problem  insoluble  ; — but 
it  is  more  than  an  intellectual  stumbling-block,  for  it 
puts  at  fault  our  consciousness  of  first  Truths. 

Moreover,  while  Christianity  has,  to  so  vast  an  ex- 
tent, enlarged  our  religious  conceptions,  and  has  taught 
us  to  think  so  much  more  profoundly,  and  more  justly 
in  whatever  touches  our  higher  nature,  the  advances 
of  Science,  which  in  a  manner  expand  our  conscious- 
ness over  the  fields  of  infinite  space  and  time,  help  to 
impart  an  awful  intensity  to  every  subject  that  has  any 
theologic  aspect.  Then  the  same  Gospel  which  pene- 
trates our  souls  with  warm  emotions — dispersive  of 
selfishness,  brings  in  upon  the  heart  a  sympathy  that 
tempts  us  often  to  wish  that  itself  were  not  true;  or 
that  it  had  not  taught  us  so  to  feel.  At  these  points 
then  we  come  upon  an  interior  antagonism — a  deep 
counteractive  energy,  whence  springs  almost  with  peri- 
odic regularity — a  disbelief  of  which  Christianity  is  the 
immediate  object,  inasmuch  as  it  is  its  incitative  cause. 

During  a  period  of  repose,  such  as  that  which  we 
have  passed  through,  the  Christian  system,  its  doctrines 
and  its  moral  energies,  working  freely  upon  a  people 
whose  mind  and  speech  submit  to  no  censorship,  pro- 
duces effects  of  two  kinds — the  one  being  the  antithesis 
of  the  other.  The  first  of  these  is  the  product  of  its 
own  proper  influence,  which  is  to  refine  and  enhance 
the  humanizing  sensibilities  of  the  people,  in  their  re- 

30* 


354        THE  KESTORATION  OF  BELIEF. 

Bpectlve  classes : — many  of  the  highest  will  be  seen  to 
signalize  themselves  in  courses  of  self-denying  and  truly 
noble  philanthropy;  while  the  lowest  class,  to  some  ex- 
tent, are  weaned  from  their  rudeness  and  their  ferocity. 
At  the  same  time  the  large  middle  class  becomes  alive 
to  whatever  touches  the  well-being  of  mankind,  near  at 
home,  and  afar  oJ0F,  and  tax  themselves  heavily  to  give 
effect  to  many  generous  enterprises.  In  effecting  these 
ameliorations  Christianity  shines  with  its  own  light, 
and  shows  its  derivation  from  a  world  of  love  and 
order. 

Also,  and  at  the  same  time,  and  because  the  minds 
of  men  are  at  leisure,  that  reflective  and  meditative 
sensitiveness  of  which  Christianity  is  the  source,  and 
which  it  so  much  cherishes,  and  favours,  evolves  ad- 
verse theories,  and  gives  birth  to  schemes  of  Christian- 
ized philosophy  (first  within  the  pale  of  the  Church) 
and  then  of  antichristian  philosophy,  beyond  those 
limits.  From  this  same  perplexed  meditation  spring, 
in  their  ancient  order  of  sequence.  Pantheistic  and 
Atheistic  schemes,  which  might  be  spoken  of  as  the 
Congestion  of  thought  in  minds,  often  of  fine  mould, 
though  not  the  most  robust.  Take  two  men  of  equally 
humane  temperament,  and  train  both  of  them  under 
Christian  influences,  and  lead  them  both,  day  after 
day,  through  scenes  of  human  degradation  and  wretch- 
edness : — the  one  of  them  whose  structure  of  mind  is 
the  most  ordinary,  and  also  the  most  healthy,  will  ad- 
dict himself,  forthwith,  to  some  instituted  labour  of 
Christian  benevolence,  and  he  finds  himself,  though 
much  worn,  yet  happy  in  his  path  of  toil.  The  other, 
and  who  is  intellectually  the  choice  sample  of  the  two, 


THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  355 

deeply  ponders  what  he  sees : — he  thinks,  till  he  be- 
comes miserable ; — he  throws  up  his  religious  profession, 
and  wildly  looks  round  for  some  doctrine  or  a  theory 
that  may  assuage  his  anguish : — he  finds  no  such  doc- 
trine, and  the  collapse  of  conflicting  feelings  leaves 
him — without  God,  and  without  hope  in  the  world. 
Deprive  the  first  of  these  men  of  his  Christian  belief, 
and  of  his  Christian  motives  and  hopes,  and  he  will 
presently  ''faint  and  be  weary"  in  his  work.  But 
withdraw  from  the  mind  of  the  other  those  lofty  con- 
ceptions of  the  Supreme  Wisdom  and  Goodness  which 
he  received  at  first  from  Christianity,  and  he  would 
quickly  find  himself  able  to  turn  away  from  scenes  of 
human  miserv  with  frivolous  indifference. 

We  may  be  sure  that  whenever  Christianity  has  so 
far  wrought  itself  into  the  mind  of  a  people  as  to  give 
existence  among  them  to  many  self-denying  enterprises 
of  benevolence,  and  to  sustain  these  labours  in  vigour 
from  year  to  year,  it  will  also  have  produced  a  reaction, 
within  the  same  community,  uttering  itself  concerning 
the  evils  that  abound  in  the  social  system  in  tones, 
which  at  first  are  querulous — then  ferocious,  and  at  last 
blasphemous.  If  on  all  sides  of  us  there  are  peniten- 
tiaries— reformatory  prisons — missions  among  canni- 
bals— and  those  latest  eSiorescences  of  Christian  love 
— ragged  schools — then  there  will  also  be  heard  lectu- 
rers and  writers,  some  of  them  men  of  genius,  who, 
beginning  their  career  as  humane  reformers,  end  it  as 
murky  misanthropic  Atheists.  Just  as  the  pains  and 
ti'oubles  of  a  man's  individual  lot  may  drive  him  to 
snatch  at  the  knife  or  poison  of  the  suicide,  so  may  the 
anguish  and  the  despair  with  which  a  sensitive  hcai  t 


356  THE   RESTORATION  OF   BELIEF. 

contemplates  the  miseries  that  are  in  the  world  impel 
him  to  open  the  veins  of  the  immortal  spirit,  and  let 
go  forth  the  life-blood  of  the  soul. 

This  is  that  sifting  of  spirits — this  is  that  fiery  trial 
which,  with  a  peculiar  intensity,  is  going  on  at  this 
time,  and  is  putting  to  the  severest  proof  the  loyalty — 
the  religious  allegiance,  of  many  minds  born  and  trained 
within  the  pale  of  Christian  influence.  To  each  of  us, 
in  a  more  or  less  pointed  manner,  the  critical  question 
is  now  put  whether  we  will  stand  by  Heaven — by  Truth 
— by  Goodness ;  or  will  range  ourselves  with  primoeval 
rebellion,  and  bo  compromised  with  those  whose  quarrel 
with  God  may  be  older  than  the  mountains  ? 

This  trial  of  constancy  is  now  severe ;  but  a  time  is 
inevitable  when  it  will  have  become  more  so.  One  need 
not  be  gifted  with  a  prophet's  eye  to  foresee  this :  for  it 
is  a  course  of  things — it  is  an  issue,  that  is  involved  in 
the  present  condition  and  tendencies  at  once  of  religious 
feeling,  and  of  Abstract  Thought. 

Those  who,  by  God's  help,  have  survived  (In  a  re- 
ligious sense)  a  conflict  of  this  kind,  eagerly  turn  to  the 
Evangelic  records  of  Christ's  discourses,  that  they  may 
discover  if  He  has  made  any  provision — or  if  so,  what 
provision,  for  securing  the  tranquillity  of  those  who 
"  believe  and  are  sure"  that  He  is  the  true  inter- 
preter of  God's  ways  toward  men.  IIow  is  it  that 
this  "  Physician  of  souls  "  goes  about  to  heal  the  deep 
wounds  of  those  whose  wounds  have  touched  the  im- 
mortal life  ?  We  cannot  open  the  Gospels  without 
acknowledging  that  the  lips  of  this  Teacher  breathe 
love  and  peace — health  and  power,  as  well  as  wisdom. 
May  we  not  therefore  confidently  look  to  Him  for  tlie 


357  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

resolution  of  our  perplexities — for  the  solving  of  dis- 
tracting problems  ?  will  He  not  shed  some  light  upon 
the  dark  mysteries  of  this  world  ?  He  does  nothing 
of  that  sort  which  we  so  much  desire !  He  is  fixedly 
abstinent  in  relation  even  to  subjects  which  the  Jewish 
mind  of  that  age  had  become  in  some  degree  alive  to. 
He  does  not  propound  the  main  articles  of  a  Theistic 
belief,  or  speak  of  them  as  if  they  needed  to  be 
ascertained  or  defended.  Much  less  does  He  recoo;- 
nize,  as  if  they  were  a  burden  upon  that  belief,  the 
staggering  difficulties  which  oppress  us,  of  this  age, 
and  with  which  the  thoughtful  in  all  times  have  so 
vainly  striven.  That  heavy  load  of  troubled  specu- 
lation which  weighs  us  down,  does  not  seem  to  have 
come  into  His  view  when  He  invites  the  weary  to 
seek  their  rest  in  Him.  This  "Man  of  sorrows,"  and 
"acquainted  with  griefs,"  gives  no  expression  to  those 
griefs  which,  to  many  of  the  thoughtful  and  sensitive 
among  His  followers,  have  outweighed  the  pressure 
of  the  most  extreme  personal  sufferings,  so  that  they 
have  been  tempted  to  say — "  I  am  indeed  afflicted — 
yet  would  endure  all  with  cheerfulness,  if  the  thick 
darkness  that  overspreads  these  heavens  were  with- 
drawn, or  if  only  I  could  see  a  verge  of  the  dawn  upon 
the  cloud." 

On  one  occasion,  when  a  perplexity  nearly  of  this 
class  stood  out  suddenly  in  His  view,  there  is  heard 
from  His  lips  a  singular  outburst  of  devout  exultation 
— "  I  thank  Thee,  0  Father  " — which  in  no  way  chimes 
in  with  our  modern  comfortless  feeling.  When,  from 
the  ridge  of  Olivet,  He  wept  over  the  doomed  city — 
its  palaces  and  Temple,  His  sorrow  was  of  that  sort 


358  THE   RESTORATION   OF  BELIEF. 

■which  resembles  the  spontaneous  grief  of  a  parent  who 
foresees  the  miseries  that  are  in  store  for  a  rebelUous 
child : — the  trouble  was  of  the  concrete,  not  of  the 
abstract  kind. 

And  yet  if  we  do  not  find  in  the  teaching  of  Christ 
that  which  we  should  so  gladly  find,  we  find  at  least 
the  rudiments  of  peace,  and  a  remedy  against  distrac- 
tion, which,  if  we  will  accept  it  and  use  it,  brings  with 
it  as  much  acquiescence  as  is  to  be  had,  in  the  nature 
of  things,  on  earth ; — and  as  much,  perhaps,  as  is 
to  be  found  even  among  those  that  have  encircled 
the  Eternal  Throne  since  the  morning  hours  of  the 
Creation. 

If  there  presents  itself — and  such  a  surmise  will 
present  itself,  a  surmise  of  this  kind — That  the  terms 
and  phrases  which  are  employed  by  the  Canonical  wri- 
ters when  they  speak  of  the  Divine  attributes  of  Wis- 
dom, Goodness,  Love,  are  used,  as  of  necessity,  because 
there  are  none  others  ;  but  that  these  terms  must  not 
be  so  understood,  or  so  interpreted  by  us,  as  would 
bring  them  into  parallelism  with  our  finite  conceptions, 
or  with  any  human  modes  of  thinking  and  of  feeling,- 
and  which  would  warrant  the  free  outflow  of  our  sym- 
pathies in  harmony  with  our  religious  beliefs ; — if  we 
are  thus  tempted  to  think,  then  a  suspicion  so  disheart- 
ening is  dispelled  when  we  consent  to  listen  to  Christ 
as  what  He  declares  himself  to  be — namely,  not  merely 
a  Messenger,  sent  by  God  to  man,  but  far  more  than 
this — the  Living  Representative  of  the  Divine  Nature, 
so  far  as  the  Infinite  Mind  can  become  cognizable  by 
the  finite  mind.  Now  as  Representative  of  God  among 
men,  we  hear  Ilim  say — "  He  that  hath  seen  me,  hath 


TUE   RESTORATION   OF    BELIEF.  359 

seen  the  Father  also,"  and  it  is  certain  that  -what  are 
called  the  moral  attributes,  are,  in  a  much  ampler  sense 
cognizable  by  us  than  the  natural  attributes  can  be. 
It  is  not  merely  that  Christ,  authenticating  His  mes- 
sacre  bv  miracles,  teaches  us  with  authority  concerning 
God ;  but  He  treads  the  earth  as  the  genuine  Image 
of  the  Invisible  God  ; — and,  as  such.  He  assures  us  that 
the  Universe  is  one.  in  its  moral  constitution — that  the 
language  of  Heaven  is  literally  interpretable  among 
men — word  for  word ;  and  that  whatever  marvels  might 
surprise  us  in  traversing  the  skies,  we  should  every- 
where find  ourselves  at  home,  as  to  our  moral  intuitions. 
The  lanoruacre  in  which  we  embody  our  notions  of  the 
True,  the  Right,  the  Good,  the  Loving,  is  not  a  dialect 
of  this  province ;  but  it  is  the  universal  style  of  God's 
kingdom  in  all  places. 

Precisely  therefore  as  we,  if  we  be  humane,  are 
prompted  to  "  do  good  to  all,  even  to  the  evil  and  the 
unthankful,"  so,  and  with  a  feeling  strictly  analogous 
to  this,  does  the  Father  of  all  dispense  His  benefits. 
In  a  sense  corresponding  to  our  own  consciousness— 
He  is  righteous  in  His  administration — He  is  no  re- 
specter  of  persons — He  is  merciful — compassionate — 
slow  to  anger — ready  to  forgive — and  a  Hearer  of 
prayer.  But  He  is  firm  of  purpose,  true  to  His  word, 
and  sure  to  give  effect  to  whatever  originates  with  Him- 
self. The  Saviour  Christ  does  not  in  words  vindicate 
the  wavs  of  God  to  men;  but  better  than  this.  He 
stands  before  us  as  a  Living  Theodicaea — an  intelli- 
gible expression  of  those  attributes  of  the  Divine  Xa- 
ture  which  carry  with  them,  if  not  an  implicit  solution 
of  the  dark  mysteries  of  the  moral  system,  yet  an  anti- 


360  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

dote  to  tlie  fatal  effect  they  might  have  upon  our  minds ; 
and  this  is  certain,  that  if  there  be  rebellion  in  any 
province  of  the  universe,  it  is  a  resistance  to  such  wis- 
dom, such  rectitude,  and  such.love,  as  are  brought  down 
to  our  apprehension  in  the  Person  of  Christ — the  Chris-t 
of  God. 

And  yet,  if  by  this  means  a  Theology  is  set  before 
me  which  commands  my  approval,  something  more  is 
needed  to  afford  me  the  intimate  satisfaction  which  I 
need ;  or  at  least  to  convey  to  my  heart  a  uniform 
peace — a  sentiment,  as  well  as  a  conclusion  of  the  rea- 
son. I  may  make  progress  as  to  my  conceptions  of 
the  Divine  Nature ;  and  yet  the  further  I  go  in  assimi- 
lating my  own  state  of  mind  to  those  conceptions,  so 
much  the  more  does  darkness  thicken  around  me  when 
I  look  abroad,  and  when  I  tread  the  crowded  thorough- 
fares of  this  world.  It  is  true  that  there  are  obvious 
considerations  which,  if  they  be  wisely  entertained, 
suffice  for  convincing  me  that  those  troubles  and  pains 
that  affect  myself  have  been,  and  are,  not  more  than  a 
needful  and  beneficial  discipline,  which  finds  its  suffi- 
cient reason  in  the  wholesome  products  by  which  I  am 
morally  the  gainer.  But  where  shall  I  find  the  shadow 
of  a  reason,  applicable  to  the  millions  of  instances  in 
which  the  miseries  of  this  life  are  taking  effect  in  no 
such  remedial  manner ;  but  the  contrary — are  the  very 
source  and  cause  of  aggravated  vice,  and  of  deeper  and 
deeper  wretchedness  ? 

At  this  point  it  becomes  evident  that,  as  the  ground 
of  a  settled  religious  composure  in  looking  abroad  upon 
the  human  S3^stem,  such  as  it  is,  and  ever  has  been,  I 
need  something  more  than  hitherto  I  have  found.    Ab- 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  361 

v<?tract  Theism  is  serviceable  to  a  certain  extent ;  but  it 
leaves  me  to  contend,  as  I  may,  ■with  formidable  sur- 
mises, and  to  abide  under  the  shadow  of  mysteries  that 
have  always  defied  human  reason.  On  this  ground  the 
brio-htest  lights  and  the  darkest  shadows — not  blended 
by  any  diffusive  medium,  show  the  harshest  contrasts. 
When  I  advance  from  this  ground  and  come  upon  the 
illuminated  field  of  the  Biblical  Theism,  there  is  here 
indeed  both  light  and  warmth :  nevertheless,  as  we  have 
just  seen,  it  is  this  very  Theism,  well  defined  as  it  is, 
and  pure,  which  gives  a  proportionate  intensity  to  the 
trouble  that  draws  its  too  valid  reasons  from  the  spec- 
tacle of  human  nature — erring,  suffering,  and  far  from 
hope. 

Where  then  shall  I  find  peace  ?  Shall  I  school  my- 
self in  apathy,  and  resolutely  refuse,  any  more,  to  care 
for  ills  which  do  not  infringe  upon  my  personal  ease 
and  enjoyment  ?  I  cannot  do  this,  if  I  would.  I  dare 
not  persuade  myself  to  assume  this  insensibility,  even 
toward  the  million  with  whom  I  have  no  tie  of  near  re- 
lationship : — how  then  shall  I  attempt  it  as  toward  the 
few  whose  welfare  is  dearer  to  me  than  my  own.  Philo- 
sophy will  not  help  me.  Theistic  Theories  fail  me  at 
the  very  point  where  I  might  look  to  them  for  comfort  > 
nay,  they  mock  me  at  that  point.  The  Theism  of  the 
Bible,  if  it  be  considered  abstractedly,  renders  me  ten- 
fold more  alive  to  perplexities  of  this  kind  than  I  should 
have  been  without  it : — it  is  the  very  soul  of  that  con- 
sciousness upon  which  the  evil  and  the  woe  around  me 
so  powerfully  take  effect. 

I  see  before  me  but  one  way  of  peace ;  and  yet  even 
this  is  not  rest  to  the  Reason,  for  it  does  not  bring  with 

31 


3G2  THE   RESTORATION   OF   BELIEF. 

it  a  clearing  away  of  thick  clouds ;  it  is  not  the  opening 
of  a  bright  azure  overhead  ;  but  it  is  the  commencement 
of  a  composure  which  establishes  itself  in  the  heart  in  a 
spontaneous  and  gradual  manner.  Devoutly  I  believe 
that  there  is  not  in  this  world  (and  probably  not  in  any 
other)  more  than  one  position  in  occupying  which  the 
human  mind — if  it  be  sensitive,  and  unselfish,  and  in 
every  sense  alivCj  can  be  exempted  from  those  distract- 
ing perplexities  which  are  incompatible  with  moral 
health,  and  which  abate  virtuous  energy. 

Already  I  have  listened  to  Christ  as  a  Teacher  sent 
into  the  world  on  God's  part,  to  make  known  to  me 
what  I  could  not  otherwise  have  known.  I  have  learned 
also  to  regard  Him  as  the  Representative  of  the  Moral 
Attributes  of  God,  so  that,  in  contemplation  of  Him  I 
acquire  a  consciousness,  as  to  those  attributes,  which 
is  genuine  and  trustworthy,  and  sufficient  too  for  my 
guidance  and  support  in  the  exigencies  of  this  life.  It 
remains  then  that  I  think  of,  and  live  in  communion 
with  the  same  Christ  as  the  Faultless  Man,  in  whose 
demeanour,  and  in  whose  words  and  actions,  I  find  an 
intelligible  authentication  of  every  emotion,  and  of 
every  sensibility  which  I  ought  to  allow,  and  to  cherish, 
as  good  and  reasonable,  and  as  truly  related,  not  only 
to  those  facts  which  come  within  my  own  range  of 
vision ;  but  to  those  also  which  lie  far  beyond  it.  In 
the  demeanour,  in  the  discourses,  in  the  conduct  of 
Christ — the  True  and  Faultless  Man,  I  see  reflected, 
as  in  a  mirror,  all  things  of  all  worlds  that  touch,  or 
"  that  belong  to,  the  moral  state  and  consciousness  of 
the  intelligent  creation — that  is  to  say — all  those  facts 


THE    RESTORATION    OP   BELIEF.  363 

which,  if  I  saw  and  knew  them,  would  aifect  me  with  a 
corresponding  joy  or  sorrow. 

It  must  not  be  pretended,  on  the  adverse  side,  that 
the  Evangelic  Memoirs,  containing  as  they  do  the 
whole  that  we  can  now  know  of  Christ,  are  too  frag- 
mentary— too  inartificial,  and  too  brief,  to  warrant  my 
deriving  from  them  the  comprehensive  Personal  Idea 
which  now  I  am  in  search  of.  Infinitely  preferable  are 
these  fragmentary  Gospels,  in  relation  to  the  purpose 
before  me,  than  would  be  any  imaginable  biography, 
framed  upon  a  philosophic  principle.  In  any  instance 
where  the  Individual  Man  of  a  past  age  is  to  be 
thought  of,  vividly  and  correctly,  give  me  genuine 
fragvients  of  his  actual  life,  and  of  his  familiar  con- 
verse with  his  chosen  friends,  and  keep  far  out  of  my 
sight  the  generalizing  portraiture  which  may  be  offered 
to  me  by  some  writer  who  is  more  full  of  himself,  than 
of  his  subject.  This  is,  I  think,  the  rule  in  observance 
of  which  the  ablest  recent  writers  of  history  have  made 
so  great  an  advance  upon  the  practice  of  their  prede- 
cessors. The  Gospels,  rigidly  analyzed  on  the  prin- 
ciples that  are  now  authenticated  within  the  depart- 
ment of  history,  offer  to  me  precisely  the  materials 
which  are  the  most  to  be  desired,  in  such  a  case. 

With  these  materials  in  my  hand — with  these 
sketches — these  hints — before  me,  I  come  into  the  pos- 
sessions of  a  conception  of  the  Personal  Christ  as  com- 
plete as  I  have  of  any  personage  of  the  ancient  epochs. 
And  I  acquire  this  distinct  conception  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  this  Person  is  such  a  one  as  had  never 
before  trod  the  earth,  nor  has  the  like  to  Him  trod  it 
since.     And  be  it  observed  that  this  Perfect  Idea  which 


364  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

has  concreted  itself  in  my  mind,  is  not  a  vague  outline 
of  godlike  ranjesty;  but  it  has  the  vivacity  and  the  in- 
telligible distinctn-ess  of  a  likeness,  taken  and  fixed,  at 
various  moments,  by  some  infallible  and  instantaneous 
process.  All  things  mundane  I  must  regard  as  a 
troubled  dream — all  history  must  become  as  an  inco- 
herent myth,  if  it  be  not  certain  that  the  Christ  of  the 
Gospels  is  a  reality,  and  the  incidents  of  His  life  in 
the  strictest  sense  historical. 

This  being  so,  and  as  I  have  on  other  grounds  con- 
vinced myself  that  this  Christ  of  the  Gospels  unites  in 
His  Person  the  qualities  and  virtues  of  human  nature 
with  the  attributes  of  the  Divine  nature,  I  draw  near 
to  Him  in  the  confidence  that  I  shall  find  indicated 
in  His  behaviour,  in  His  words,  and  in  His  actions, 
those  views  and  sentiments  regarding  the  subjects  that 
most  perplex  me,  which,  if  I  could  but  attain  the  same, 
would  give  me  composure,  at  least.  While  I  approach 
Him — even  "  Jesus,  Son  of  David,"  thronged  by  the 
multitude,  I  see  Him  as  one  who  is  conscious  of  all  con- 
ditions and  states  of  being — visible  and  invisible — the 
past,  the  present,  and  the  future  : — the  present  and  the 
visible  must  in  His  view  keep  their  proportion,  as  rela- 
ted to  the  unseen  and  the  eternal. 

It  is  certain  that  it  is  not  insensibility — it  is  not 
insensitiveness  of  temperament,  whence  springs  the  se- 
renity of  that  brow,  and  the  governed  calm  of  that 
countenance.  But  then  may  it  not  be  that,  in  the 
depths  of  that  unfathomable  soul,  wherein  the  weal  of 
all  creatures  is  entertained,  no  regard  is  had  to  those 
ills  and  pains  of  an  hour  or  a  day,  the  witnessing  of 
which  moves  me  to  pity,  and  disturbs  my  peace  ?    If  I 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  365 

might  be  tempted  to  think  so,  then  I  follow  the  course 
of  this  Saviour  of  the  world,  and  note  what  is  the 
quality  and  the  intention  of  His  miracles,  from  the  first 
of  them  to  the  last.  Now  in  this  series  there  occur  not 
more  at  the  most,  than  two  or  three  exceptions  to  the 
rule,  that  they  were  interpositions,  having  for  their 
purpose  the  relief  of  bodily  suiFerings,  or  the  supply  of 
bodily  wants. — They  were  (with  these  few  exceptions) 
just  such  acts  of  spontaneous  sympathy  as  my  own 
feelings  would  prompt  me  to  imitate,  every  day,  if  I 
could,  when  mingling  with  the  concourse  of  crowded 
cities.  In  this  sense  we  may  reverse  the  Scripture, 
and  say,  "  the  mind  that  is  in  me,  was  also  in  Christ 
Jesus."  There  was  in  Him  compassion  on  a  level 
with  the  most  ordinary  of  the  ills  that  affect  human- 
ity. It  was  not  that,  to  Him  before  whose  eye  the 
immortality  of  the  thousands  around  Him  was  laid 
open,  their  present  pains — their  lameness  and  palsy, 
their  blindness  and  deafness,  their  hunger  and  their 
thirst  and  weariness,  were  of  small  or  no  account. 
It  was  not  that  a  forethought  of  the  boundless  future 
bred  in  Him  a  lofty  indifference  toward  pains  and  ills 
so  ephemeral  as  those  that  weigh  upon  mortality. 
Viewed  on  this  ground,  and  in  relation  to  the  inference 
which  I  have  now  in  view,  the  series  of  evangelic  mir- 
acles carries  with  it  a  peremptory  conclusion.  The 
case  before  us  is  one  in  Avhich  the  less  involves  the 
greater.  It  is  certain  that  He  who  knows,  and  who 
has  in  his  view  all  that  I  see  and  know,  and  far  more, 
and  whose  emotions  of  pity  are  like  my  own — yet  far 
more  acute,  and  uniform — has  also  in  His  view,  such 
facts,  or  such  prospects  as  are  more  than  suflScient  for 

81* 


366  TUE    .RESTORATIOISr    OF   BELIEF. 

the  double  purpose,  first  of  securing  an  habitual  com- 
posure and  tranquillity,  and  the7i  for  holding  entire  an 
unshaken  loyalty  toward  God — the  Sovereign  Creator 
and  Ruler  of  the  universe. 

If  now  the  question  be  put  to  me,  whether  my  Chris- 
tian Belief  enables  me  to  rid  myself  of  that  burden 
of  far-reaching  care  and  trouble  which  I  share  with 
the  thoughtful  of  all  ages — my  reply  is  this — In  truth 
I  have  not  found  the  means  of  ridding  myself  of  this 
burden  ;  but  in  the  Gospels  I  have  found  Him  in  com- 
munion with  whom  I  am  learning  how  to  bear  it ;  and 
thus  I  hope  to  bear  it  to  the  end,  still  retaining  my 
faith  and  trust  in  God  as  supremely  Good  and  Wise — 
"a  Just  God,  and  a  Saviour." 


THE   END. 


P[:'"ceton  Theological  Seminary  Libraries 


1    1012  01247  9731 


